Mr and Mrs Yu, Mr Wong, Professor Ching, honorable guests, colleagues and students,
Good afternoon. On behalf of the City University of Hong Kong, I would like to welcome you to the
Book Donation Ceremony, “Treasures of China before & after 1949”, which recognizes an extraordinary
donation by Mr Gabriel Yu Chi-ming and Mrs Teresa Yu. It is a joyful day for CityU to receive this
remarkable rare book collection through the generosity of Mr & Mrs Yu. This is, in fact, the largest book
donation that our library has ever received from a private donor.
This donation by Mr & Mrs Yu not only expands our library’s existing Chinese collection, but extends
its time span from the late Qing era to the early 20th century. This book collection will greatly enhance
our library resources in learning, teaching and research and contribute to our culture of discovery and
innovation at CityU.
Mr Gabriel Yu is the chairman and co-founder of iTVentures Group of Companies, a leading Internet
investment company headquartered in Hong Kong. Mr Yu has devoted great effort to developing Chinese
educational software and an online bookstore. He has digitized more than 3,000 titles of Siku Quanshu.
Siku is often referred to as the encyclopedia of Chinese works collected as a set by the Emperor of the Qing
Dynasty. By developing a platform that facilitates retrieval of these works with many value-added services,
Mr Yu has been providing valuable resources to many libraries and scholars around the world. Mr Yu is an
Honorary Fellow of City University of Hong Kong. He has contributed in many other ways to support the
development of CityU in the past years. Mr Yu is also a role model for our students. He is a successful
entrepreneur who is creative, innovative and supports the full range of scholarly pursuits. He has
continuously contributed to the development of higher education for many years. On behalf of the
University, I would like to express our sincere gratitude to Mr & Mrs Yu for their donation of this
important and precious book collection to the CityU Library.
At CityU, we are preparing a new breed of professionals who can respond to the unique 21st
century challenges presented by a rapidly changing, knowledge-driven global environment. The
Discovery-enriched Curriculum (DEC) that we are building has the goal that every CityU student
will have the opportunity to make an original discovery while they are here. Our students will
learn what it means to create new knowledge and to communicate, curate and cultivate that
knowledge to benefit society. We also understand that our students cannot excel in their chosen
professions unless they are exposed to an interdisciplinary and multi-cultural learning environment.
Knowledge in history, art & culture, literature and philosophy will broaden the horizons of our students
in their learning journey and provide valuable perspectives as they make their future plans. The contents
of this generous donation by Mr & Mrs Yu will advance CityU’s commitment to such whole person
development.
Finally, I would also like to thank the library staff members, under the fine leadership of
University Librarian Steve Ching, for their hard work and dedication. Our entire campus
community will benefit from their stewardship of this magnificent collection.
Thank you for sharing this memorable event with us.
As an historian of socio-economic history of China, I am excited to find many archive, statistics and
documents relating to the social economic history in this collection. I also find many interesting things
and very important and valuable materials, such as the novels written by Mr Lu Xun and Aoki Masaru,
as well as the book of Marco Polo.
This modern and contemporary China collection is very precious not only for historians and researchers,
but also for the local society and even the readers around the world. From this collection, we can also
learn more about the Hong Kong intellectuals’ network with China, Japan and Southeast Asia.
I am pleased to meet again with Mr Wong
Chi-ching, the bibliophile of this collection, in
today’s book donation ceremony. Some 30 years
ago, when I was still a student studying Hong
Kong history, Mr Wong has given me great
assistance in looking for books and materials.
Thank you very much Mrs Teresa Yu and Mr Yu
Chi-Ming, founder of Di Zhi Culture Publication
Company for this great donation.
Congratulation to the library of City University
for receiving such an important collection!