Yuan Tung-li

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Yuan Tung-li (1895–1965) was a Chinese librarian and bibliographer. He led the National Library of China and later worked as a Chinese literature consultant at the U.S. Library of Congress.

Born in Beijing, he studied at the University of Peking, earning his degree in 1916, then went to the United States for further study, earning a BA from Columbia College in 1922 and a Bachelor of Library Science from Albany’s New York State Library School in 1923. He returned to China in 1923 and worked as a librarian at National Kwangtung University. In 1925 he became librarian and professor of bibliography at Peking University. In 1926 he was named director of the Peking Metropolitan Library, which in 1929 merged with the old National Library to form the National Library of Peiping, a predecessor of the National Library of China. He served as associate director of the National Library until 1942, then became director, succeeding Cai Yuanpei. As director, he expanded the library to China’s largest and modernized its administration and services using Western methods for Chinese scholarship.

In 1945 he advised the Chinese delegation to the United Nations and received an honorary Doctor of Laws from the University of Pittsburgh. He left China in 1949 for the United States, where he was chief bibliographer for Stanford University Research Institute and later joined the Library of Congress, working there until his death. He died in Washington, D.C., on February 6, 1965, at the age of 69.