Chinese version of RDA Registry published

The RDA Registry is updated on July 25, 2024. I can see the Chinese version uploaded along with other 17 languages. This is very important for the sharing of library cataloging records (data) in the World Wide Web age.

New Year Ex-Libris

 I just received a new year gift from Mr. Han Ying, who is one of my friends and an artist from Qingdao, Shandong Province.

This ex-libris for the coming Year of the Dragon, beginning from February 10, 2024, is a red dragon seal image inspired from the Jade Dragon of the Hongshan culture in the Northeastern China 5000 years ago.

Mr. Han promised to design a complete set of ex-libris with 12 animals from the Chinese zodiac cycle. This is the eleventh ex-libris he designed for me, and the eighth in the zodiac cycle.

Bella Lingua : a Good Book about the Italian Language

This is a book review by me for the newly published Chinese edition of the book: La Bella Lingua: My Love Affair with Italian, the World's Most Enchanting Language writted by Dianne Hales. The Chinese edition was just published by the Zhejiang University Press in September 2023.

In the review, I mentioned Professor Mauro Guerrini, one of my friends in the IFLA Cataloguing Section. We went back from Seoul to Beijing in August 2006, after the IME ICC4 meeting and the World Library and Information Congress. During the Seoul-Beijing flight, we talked about the beautiful language. He was the president of the Organizing Committee of the 2009 WLIC in Milan as the president of the Italian Library Association.

The book also mentions the passage "Va, pensiero, sull'ali dorate" in the chorus of Giuseppe Verdi's opera Nabucco, with a special Chinese translation for the word "pensiero" in the Chinese edition of the book.

I learnt the Italian from the book Come imparare l'italiano da solo, which was introduced by Professor Zhou Zixiang, Department of Mathematics, Fudan University, who was preparing to go to Italy as a visiting scholar in 1986. He still remenber our discussion about the beautiful language at that time.

The book is very special, because the author has diverse thinking. Linguistic theorists would not write such a book, and other writers without gold linguistic knowledge will not be able to do so.

美丽的语言

作者: [美]黛安娜·黑尔斯

出版社: 浙江大学出版社

出品方: 启真馆

副标题: 恋上意大利语

原作名: La Bella Lingua: My Love Affair with Italian, the World's Most Enchanting Language

译者: 沈毅

出版年: 2023-11

页数: 346

定价: 69.00元

装帧: 平装

丛书: 启真·闲读馆

ISBN: 9787308240437

New Book Published

My new book 30 Years of the Bookworm was just published by the Zhejiang University Press, December 2023. It is the fourth of my selected essays, previous published at blogs, journals, newspapers, etc., in the past four years. They are essays about my experiences at the National Library of China, some comments about library acquisitions and cataloging, book reviews, essays about music and records of my visits to libraries and bookstores.

Illustrator: Mailing

Book cover Ex-Libris designer: Han Ying

Preface author: Quan Genxian

书蠹卅载 / 顾犇 著 ; [全根先 序 ; 麦铃 插图 ; 韩盈 封面藏书票设计]. -- 杭州 : 浙江大学出版社（启真馆出品）, 2023.12. -- 302页 ; 21厘米. -- (三味书屋). -- ISBN 978-7-308-24294-3 : CNY 79.00.

My New Ex-Libris for the New Year

 

Mr. Ying Han designs customized ex-libris for me every year. The one for the Year of Rabbit is a rabbit lying flat. The painter explans it in the text that the lying down is not abandoning, but longing for the blossoming flowers in the spring. I think it also marks the ending of the pandemic.

Hand-made red copper relief ex-libris for Albert Camus

Hand-made red copper relief ex-libris for the book Carnets by Albert Camus. The Chinese version was published by Zhejiang University Press in 2019. This ex-libris is very special even in the world. It is design for the 15th anniversary of Qizhen Library, which is the Beijing office of the publisher. The flying horse with skull implicates his absurdity, and also the coexistence of humans with viruses. This ex-libris is recently made by Anjianda, one of my friends.

Hand-made red copper relief ex-libris for Ludwig Wittgenstein

Hand-made red copper relief ex-libris for the book Ludwig Wittgenstein: the duty of genius by Ray Monk. The Chinese version was published by Zhejiang University Press in 2014. This ex-libris is very special even in the world. It is design for the 15th anniversary of Qizhen Library, which is the Beijing office of the publisher. We can see a sewing machine and a book, which reflect his interests from engineering (he made a sewing machine when he was ten years old) to mathematics and philosophy. This ex-libris was recently made by Anjianda, one of my friends.