We at the Asia Library have been very fortunate to have talented interns joining us every year to work on special projects. This year we would like to welcome three new interns, each of whom works on one of the three main subject areas of the Asia Library (Chinese studies, Japanese studies, and Korean studies).
Hao Zhang (hhzh@umich.edu) will serve as the Curatorial Assistant for Chinese Archival Materials from this August to summer 2025. Sponsored by the U-M Lieberthal-Rogel Center for Chinese Studies (LRCCS), her internship is part of the long-term collaboration between LRCCS and the Asia Library to bridge scholarship and librarianship.
Hao is completing her M.A. degree in International and Regional Studies at U-M (anticipated in August 2024) with a focus on modern and contemporary China. She received her B.A. degree in Music with a Minor in Japanese in May 2022 from the University of Rochester, where she worked as an ensemble librarian for the university’s chamber orchestra. In her new role, Hao will concentrate on making the Asia Library’s holdings of 20th-century Chinese archival collections accessible by producing finding aids and preparing materials for digitization.
Suparna Hande (suparnah@umich.edu) will begin her one-year internship as the Oka Tadoku Room Intern in Fall 2024. Initiated in 2022, this program was sponsored by Mayumi Oka, former director of the Japanese Language Program at U-M, and her husband Masao Oka, the funders of the Oka Tadoku Room.
A member of the Japanese Language Program at U-M Residential College, Suparna is majoring in Creative Writing & Literature and Asian Studies with a focus on Japanese Studies. Previously, she served as a student editor for events in the Department of Afroamerican and African Studies. In her new role, Suparna aims to share the joy of language learning through event programming at the Tadoku Room. She also hopes to encourage students not only in the Japanese language program but also those in the Chinese and Korean language programs to get more involved in Tadoku activities.
As our newest intern sponsored by the Korea Foundation Global Challengers Program, Jisu Han (jisuha@umich.edu) will be working at the Asia Library from June 10, 2024 to April 9, 2025. This year marks the tenth anniversary of the Asia Library’s participation in this program of the Korea Foundation.
Jisu completed a double major, earning a B.A. degree in Management Information Systems and another in Library and Information Science, both from Keimyung University in Daegu, Korea, in 2021. After graduation, Jisu worked as a librarian at the Keimyung University Culture Library for two years. In her new role, she will assist the Asia Library’s Korean language team with the acquisition, cataloging, and processing of the Korean collection. She will also focus on various projects related to e-resources, research guides, and digital humanities.
Please join us in welcoming Hao, Suparna, and Jisu! We would also like to sincerely thank our generous sponsors: LRCCS, the Okas, and the Korea Foundation.
(Credit: Keiko Yokota-Carter and Yunah Sung contributed essential information to this blog post.)