Jim Cheng

Library and information science; film studies

Jim Cheng has been the director of C.V. Starr East Asian Library, Columbia University since 2010, and served in East Asia Library, Law library at University of Washington, the University of Iowa Libraries, and International Relations & Pacific Studies Library and East Asia Collection at the University of California, San Diego. Cheng served as the President of CEAL (Council on East Asian Libraries) 2016-2018. Due to his distinctive and innovative contribution in library collections of East Asian films, holding Film Festivals and symposiums on East Asian films, Library Journal named Cheng as one of the 2008 Movers and Shakers. In 2009, he won the Fulbright Scholar Senior Research Award for his book project in Taiwan Film Studies. 

Cheng has a B.A. in Chinese Language and Literature from Fudan University, Shanghai, China, a M.A. in Comparative Literature and a M.L.S. in Library & Information Science from University of Washington, Seattle.  His professional activities and academic works involve library information, digital projects, library special collection development, and film studies

Cheng, Jim.  An Annotated Bibliography for Taiwan Film Studies. Columbia University Press, 2016.

Cheng, Jim. “Past, Present, and Future of East Asian Collections at the University of California, San Diego,” in Collecting Asian: East Asian Libraries in North America, 1868-2008, edited by Peter X. Zhou (Ann Arbor, Michigan: Association for Asian Studies, Inc., 2010), 320-327.

Cheng, Jim.  “Chinese Underground Film Collection at UCSD Libraries,” in From Underground to Independent: Alternative Film Culture in Contemporary China, edited   by Paul G. Pickowicz and Yingjin Zhang (Lanham, Md.: Rome and Littlefield, 2006),     209-243.

Cheng, Jim.  An Annotated Bibliography for Chinese Film Study.  Hong Kong University Press, 2004.

Pacific Crossings, Wango Weng and His Film Collection at Columbia: A Zoom roundtable (March 12, 2021) brings together historians and film scholars on both China and America, and Mr. Weng’s family and friend, to discuss Mr. Weng’s filmmaking in the US, his connections to China’s film industry, and his engagements with the China Institute, the Chinese American community and American society at large.

Taiwan Cinema Yesterday and Today: A Symposium and Book Release of Annotated Bibliography for Taiwan Film Studies (April 21-22, 2016) features the lectures, book talk, film screenings, and reception, which was co-sponsored by Columbia University Press and Libraries, Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Taiwan Ministry of Culture and Cultural Center in New York.

Wang Mansheng & Zheng Xiaohua Chinese Caligraphy Exhibition and Symposium: An international exhibition (Oct. –Dec. 2014) and symposium (Oct. 17-18, 2014) features the exhibition of 30 calligraphy works, lectures, hand-on teaching and on-site performance by the known Chinese American artist Wang Mansheng and Prof. Zheng Xiaohua from the School of Arts, Renmin University, China.

Documentary Views of Taiwan: A Taiwan Documentary Film Festival and Symposium at Columbia (on Oct. 11-12, 2013) featured the screening of 4 Taiwan contemporary documentary films, panel discussions with two film directors, and lectures by scholars from National Chenchi University in Taiwan, Duke University, Michigan State University, and Columbia University. The two-day event was sponsored by Taiwan Ministry of Culture, Columbia School of the Arts, Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, and Weatherhead East Asian Institute, and attended by more than 150 people from Columbia and the local New York community.