NUS Libraries receives $30,000 gift to fund newspaper digitisation project

July 2008

Mrs Wang showing the library collection to Dr Benjamin Sheares, the President of Singapore and Chancellor of the University of Singapore, during his official visit to the University in April 1971.

NUS Libraries has received a $30,000 gift from the family of Mrs Wang-Chen Hsiu Chin (1922-1983), in support of its efforts to digitise its collection of Lat Pau (叻报), the longest running Chinese daily in pre-war Singapore.

The gift is in honour of the late Mrs Wang-Chen Hsiu Chin, who was the University Librarian of the former University of Singapore, the predecessor institution of NUS. Mrs Wang joined the library in 1955 and retired as its head in 1978. Prior to that, she had worked with a leading local Chinese newspaper, Nanyang Siang Pau, as a journalist and as the head of its resource centre.

The Straits Times, in reporting Mrs Wang’s passing in 1983, described her as “the woman who helped build the then University of Singapore’s library into one of the best in this region” (S.T. 11.5.1983). Says Mrs Lee-Wang Cheng Yeng, daughter of Mrs Wang: “This gift, made on the 25th anniversary of my mother’s earthly departure, is a tribute to a remarkable woman known for her professionalism, dedication and indomitable spirit. It is appropriate to celebrate her life and contributions by giving back to the library she had loved and served so well.”

Founded in 1881 and in circulation for 52 years, Lat Pau is an invaluable historical resource for research on pre-war Singapore, as well as on overseas Chinese during that era. NUS Libraries’ collection of the newspaper covers the period August 1887 to March 1932.