UC San Diego Library

Presented at the Society of Chinese Studies Librarians 2026 Annual Meeting in Vancouver, Canada.

In 2025, UC San Diego Library acquired two collections of photographs taken during trips to China in the 1980s: Carol Shankel Photoslides and Thea Berggren Photographs. China’s reform and opening-up policy began in the aftermath of the Third Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, held in December 1978. After China and the U.S. re-established diplomatic relations in 1979 and the reform policy, China gradually opened its doors to the Western world. The 1980s were called the honeymoon period between the US and China. Both Shankel and Berggren were among the American tourists who went to China after 1979. Shankel's collection was introduced to us through Luo Zhou, Chinese Studies Librarian of Duke University, and Berggren’s collection was brought to us by Yao Chen, Head of the East Asian Collection at the University of Chicago. The two projects are a true testament to multi-institutional collaboration. In this presentation, Xi Chen introduces the project background and collection context. Shi Deng speaks about the technical process, which incorporated extensive research into the history of 1980s China as well as AI tools for identifying objects and creating metadata.