Restoring the History Puzzle: Who's Who of American-Educated Chinese (Pre-1949)

The Presentation will report a multi-year and highly collaborative initiative that was launched in 2023 by SCSL’s Committee on Scholarly Activities (2022-24). the Who's Who of American-Educated Chinese (Pre-1949) project aims to address the urgent need to document and preserve the fading legacies of Chinese students who pursued education in the United States before 1949—a historically significant yet largely overlooked group. Although tens of thousands of Chinese students studied in the U.S. during this period, most lived in obscurity, leaving behind limited records in archives, gray literature, or personal recollections. As family and community memories risk fading, this project endeavors to reconstruct and preserve these biographical details through archival research, digital infrastructure, and community engagement. The need for this project arises from the recognition of this historical gap and the potential loss of valuable cultural heritage, particularly in the context of increasing anti-Asian sentiment in the U.S.A highly collaborative effort among academic librarians, scholars, IT specialists, communication officers, and community representatives, this initiative exemplifies interdisciplinary cooperation. The project attempts to develop an open-access biographical directory that serves both academic and public users. Through crowdsourcing, descendants and community members—regardless of Chinese heritage—will have the opportunity to contribute and validate historical data. Toward the project's conclusion, the team will assess its effectiveness by evaluating the increase in biographical records, website visits, user registrations and contributions, media coverage, and feedback from scholars, community members, and the public.The project will produce three key deliverables: a scalable metadata schema, a structured biographical database, and a methodological framework. All three will remain open-source and can be replicated by libraries, archives, and institutions of any size to document other immigrant communities. The digital infrastructure will incorporate linked data, APIs for data exchange, and user-friendly interfaces to ensure accessibility.Chinese and Chinese Americans will gain a valuable tool for exploring their ancestry and identity. Additionally, the large dataset may enable scholars to construct a reliable picture of the American-educated Chinese population, ultimately enhancing public understanding of the life paths of past and present-day Chinese students in the U.S. Beyond its academic impact, this initiative strengthens library services by equipping them with tools for preserving community history, engaging the public, and integrating multilingual digital resources.The presentation will detail the project background, multidisciplinary team and subgroup, multi-pronged data collection approach (traditional and digital), multi-year and multi-step roadmap, open-access deliverables, as well as current progress and future direction. The presentation will also build awareness among and invite contribution, participation and partnership from academic librarians in China and the United States.