Book & Media Display: Food Culture
Don’t miss our inviting Book and Media displays situated just past the entry gates on the ground floor. In March, we held two thematic displays: Celebrating Women’s Achievements, followed by Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. Both displays synced well with International Women’s Day on March 8 and the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination on March 21.
The current display Food Culture will run until the end of May. Hong Kong is hailed as the food capital of the world. It is easy for us to try all kinds of local and international cuisines with varying price tags, Michelin-starred or not. This display not only encompasses a dizzying range of dishes and delicacies around the world, it also explores the socio-cultural and historical dimensions behind them. Whether you are vegetarians or meat lovers, tea or coffee maniacs, kitchen savvy or novice, there is bound to be something in store for you.
Want food for thought? Dinner with Darwin and Newton’s chicken put an evolutionary and science perspective on food and cooking while Meat planet: artificial flesh and the future of food stretches your imagination on how to feed the world in face of growing population, climate change and environmental sustainability.
A typical display includes books and DVDs. The relevant web pages also feature ebook and kindle titles. Find out more via this path: Library home page –> Collection & Resources –> Collection Highlights.
Collection Spotlight: JoVE
JoVE provides a rich collection of scientific videos to support education and research.
JoVE Science Education features short and engaging video demonstrations of laboratory techniques and experimental procedures in various fields such as biology, chemistry, and psychology. You can view videos by chapter, control the playback speed, and view subtitles in English, Chinese, or other languages.
As a student, whether on or off campus, you can use these videos to learn and review lab procedures, and to deepen your understanding of scientific concepts and experiments.
As an instructor, embed videos on Canvas or create a playlist for your course. The publisher’s subject-matter experts can also help you tailor-make a playlist with content that is relevant to your course.
JoVE Journal covers experiment videos from peer-reviewed journal publications. They offer details about research and experiments, making it much easier to understand experimental setup and procedure for you to follow and reproduce. Check out our library guide on how to make the best use of this great resource! https://libguides.hkust.edu.hk/jove
Resplendent Beauty: Cantonese Opera Exhibition
Cantonese opera is a unique genre of performing art in the Lingnan area in southern China. It applies singing, acting, recitation and martial arts to a large variety of drama plots, and combines stage design, costume design and music accompaniment to become a folk art in the traditional society.
The Resplendent Beauty: On Cantonese Opera Repertoire and Consumes Exhibition is co-organized by the HKUST Center for the Arts, MTPC, and the Library. It will run from April 3 to July 31, featuring four well-known Cantonese operas, namely, The Butterfly Lovers 《梁山伯與祝英台》, Muk Gwai-ying Routing Hongzhou 《穆桂英大破洪州》, The Floral Princess 《帝女花》, and The Priceless Jade 《連城璧》.
These four operas are not only renowned for the excellent screenwriting and portrayal of characters, their stage sets and costume designs are also artworks in their own right. Visitors will discover the beauty of these artefacts and interact with multimedia presentations in the Library and the foyer of Shaw Auditorium.
Walter R. Kent Exhibition
The Walter R. Kent exhibition will be open from May 4 – September 8 at the KPS Gallery on 1/F. This exhibition will be a tribute to Mr. Walter R. Kent, the collector whose maps and posters are now housed in the HKUST Library Special Collections. It will explore and contextualize some of the most significant items in the collection.
Hong Kong was Walter R. Kent’s chosen home, the endpoint of a long journey throughout Asia. On his way from his hometown Brooklyn, New York, to Hong Kong, he lived in Singapore, Taiwan, Bangkok, Mumbai, etc. The maps, posters, objects, sound recordings, and photos in this exhibition will give you a glimpse of his love for these cities and, at the same time, sketch how this very personal collection came into place and remains a vivid witness of its time.
Visitors will discover the Walter R. Kent collection through a very personal perspective of a life’s journey in Asia, emphasizing Hong Kong in various stories surrounding the unique exhibition pieces.
NEW Library Coffee Mug! $40
Thank you for voting for the next Library mug design! Your most preferred size is 480 ml and your preferred color is beige – so that is what we ordered!
Get your own Library mug at the Circulation Counter on G/F!
Maybe get some for friends and family. They’re perfect for studying or hiking, indoors or outside.
Handling Defects in Library Building & Furniture
Repairing water damage
Wall strengthening for TV
Damaged power outlet
Reupholstery station on LG7
Torn furniture fabric
The Library has a small but dedicated team handling “defect reports”. These are reports of building and furniture “defects” or problems which need to be fixed. The Library is a fairly large space, with thousands of pieces of furniture, thousands more power outlets, toilets, cabling systems, lighting elements, and on and on and on.
The number of things needing repair or adjustment is significant. The facilities team handles, on average, 3-4 defects every single day. The largest categories of repairs needed are usually electrical and furnishings; followed by doors, sanitary fittings (toilets), water supply, air conditioning, etc. Lighting falls into the “electrical” category, so every burned out bulb is an important defect repair – especially in a Library with such dependance upon good lighting at the desk level. CMO’s move over the past few years to convert older lighting to LED throughout the campus has brought those numbers down significantly.
In addition to reactive defect handling, the team performs a lot of proactive building, equipment, and furniture maintenance to prevent defects from occurring in the first place. This includes employing student workers annually to verify the function of over 5,000 power outlets in the building!
Additional scheduled maintenance includes arranging reupholstery of worn-out chairs, working with CMO to tighten up older wooden reading tables for stability, arranging the clearing of all outdoor drains at the start of the wet season, tightening screws holding wheels on some rolling furniture, regular replacement of physical and UV filters for all water fountains, and dozens of other tasks.
And then there are the emergencies – including flooding from ceiling and toilets, broken windows, ceiling collapse, and even snake removal.
When not handling defect prevention or rectification, the team arranges disposal of damaged and outdated furniture and equipment, processes import declarations for Library purchases, and even handles loans of furniture to other departments for special functions.
This is all part of our effort to fulfil the Library’s strategic goal to improve and maintain an inspiring physical place for study, research, enrichment, and collaboration.
The Library’s facilities team works hard every day to maintain and enhance the Library space and facilities – ideally doing it so quickly and smoothly that you never even notice most problems. If you do see a defect, report it to Library staff or e-mail library@ust.hk and we will fix it ASAP!
Digital Humanities Website and Upcoming Talk
In February, we launched the Digital Humanities Initiative website (https://digitalhumanities.hkust.edu.hk/), showcasing ongoing work on digital humanities projects and workshops. Our aim is to promote interdisciplinary research and exploration by combining traditional humanities methods with digital tools and technologies.
The project Photography Beyond the War reveals new insights about the representation of war in visual media. Mapping East Asia involves a collection of maps, including ancient maps made by European and Chinese map makers. By digitizing these maps, we are able to make them accessible to scholars and the public, as well as using them to study the history of cartography. Cultural Revolution and Visual Memory is centered on Xinhua News Agency photographs during the Cultural Revolution, connecting contemporary artwork with the historical context of this tumultuous period in Chinese history. We are currently digitizing photographs.
In addition to these three projects, we are excited to announce an upcoming photographic collection contributed by local Hong Kong photographer Birdy Chu. As a journalist, Chu took photographs that represent the vanishing landscape in Hong Kong over the last two decades. By digitizing these photographs, we hope to preserve this important historical record and share it with a wider audience.
We are also planning a series of DH talks in April featuring experts in the field of digital humanities. The upcoming talk Facing the Future: Machine Learning and AI in Libraries, Archives, and Museums by the British Library’s Digital curator, Dr. Mia Ridge, will explore how AI, machine learning, and data science tools have changed galleries, libraries, archives, and museums (GLAMs).
We are excited to continue exploring the possibilities of digital humanities and to contribute to the wider community of scholars and enthusiasts interested in the intersection of technology and humanities.
Tech Item Kiosk Now Open
As part of the Library’s ongoing plans to expand self-service facilities, we have installed a kiosk system for you to borrow Tech Items 24/7. It rolled out in mid-February and is now fully operational.
“Technology Items for Loan” is one of our most popular services. But it was not available overnight, limiting its convenience. With the new Kiosk, items are available for you to borrow 24/7 during the term.
This Tech Item Kiosk has more than 90 compartments for loaning many types of items. These include headphones, adapters, charging cables, HDMI cables, USB drives, card readers, etc.
To borrow, simply identify yourself by interacting with the system – log in with your HKUST ID or the staff or student app on your mobile, or even by typing your login on the provided keyboard. Then select the item wanted, and the door of the assigned compartment will open automatically. To return it, just scan the item barcode and put it back to the compartment after the assigned door opens.
This is fully self-service – you don’t need to wait for available library staff unless you encounter a problem. You can even check online for a live view of what items are available: (https://library.hkust.edu.hk/services/facilities/items-for-loan/).
Spring Term iTalks
The Library is dedicated to providing a diverse range of engaging events for our community. For many years, we have organized iTalks on different topics to provide an opportunity to learn something new and connect with others who share your interests.
This spring, we are excited to present a series of iTalks covering topics from animation and Broadway to science and food culture. If you missed the iTalks in March, recordings are available on our iTalk page: https://lbcone.hkust.edu.hk/booktalk/.
| Date | Title | Speaker | Language |
| Mar 3 | 百老匯舞臺的燈光為何如此絢爛 | Mr. Larry Zhang | Cantonese |
| Mar 16 | Paying It Forward Through Mentorship | Professor Ying Chau | English |
We have two upcoming talks in April and May. Be sure to register soon, so we can see you there!
文物保育與香港邊緣鄉郊復興: 以鹽田梓的文物保育項目為例 (April 13)
Professor Cheung Siu-woo will share the experience of engaging community members as docents and heritage facilitators in Yim Tin Tsai, a revitalized Hakka village. The village has a settlement history of about 300 years and is now a popular tourist spot in Hong Kong after revitalization through various conservation projects.
This iTalk is an excellent chance to discover the community service and experiential learning opportunities available at Yim Tin Tsai. Register: https://lbcube.hkust.edu.hk/ce/event/9264/
回味無窮 : 香江百年飲食文化點滴 (May 4)
Our final Spring iTalk will be on Hong Kong’s culinary culture. The talk will be presented by renowned history researcher and returning speaker Mr. Cheng Po Hung, covering his book on the topic. We are excited to have him back as a speaker and look forward to what is sure to be an insightful and enjoyable talk.
Register: https://lbcube.hkust.edu.hk/ce/event/9375/
last modified 20 April 2023