Chinben See Memorial Library

Library hours:
Mondays to Saturdays, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Conditions for access and use:
Strictly for room use only, subject to general rules and regulations of Chinben See Memorial library.

A wealth of Kaisa´s extensive and highly specialized collection of studies on the Chinese in the Philippines and elsewhere is consulted by local and foreign researchers and dignitaries. Included in the collection are rare Filipiniana publications that have bearing on early Chinese life in the Philippines. The library presently holds about 12,000 titles in English, Chinese and Filipino as well as volumes of files ­ newspaper clippings and other popular articles in journals and magazines, documents and dissertations about the Chinese in the Philippines and other parts of the world. Professor Chinben See started the collection in the early 1960s as a graduate student in the United States. The library is dedicated to his memory, in recognition of the fact that it was his dream and vision that first conceptualized the establishment of the Kaisa Heritage Center.
    Classification of holdings
  • Chinese in the Philippines
  • Chinese in Southeast Asia and other countries
  • Filipiniana
  • Chinese Culture
  • Ethnicity/Racism/General references
  • Journals/Magazines including our fortnightly Chinese­Filipino digest Tulay which aims to be a bridge of understanding between two cultures (Filipino and Chinese) and a link of tolerance between the younger and older generation of the Chinese in the Philippines.
  • Monographs/microfilms
  • Magazines and News clippings
  • Conference papers and proceedings on ethnic and overseas Chinese
    Rare Holdings: Collections of over 200 titles, more on Philippine history, such as:
  • Fighting in the Philippines: authentic original photographs (1899)
  • Twenty years in the Philippines, translated from the French of Paul P. De La Gironiere (1854)
  • The History and Conquest of the Philippines and other island Possessions (1899)
  • Through the Philippines and Hawaii by Frank G. Carpenter (1929)
  • Manila City Directory by Rosenstock, Report of the Philippine Commission
  • In Old Manila: A Series of Pen Pictures of the Philippines´ Capital by Don Carlos W. Musser (1903)
  • El Archipelago Filipino, volumes 1 & 2 (1900), Yesterdays in the Philippines by Joseph Earle Stevens (1899)
  • The Philippines: a treasure and a problem by Nicholas Roosevelt (1893), and more.

Other important collections include:
Encyclopedia of Overseas Chinese, Documentary Sources of Philippine History, Encyclopedia of Chinese Culture, Filipino Heritage Flora de Filipinas, Harper´s History of the War in the Philippines, The Philippine Islands by Blair and Robertson, The Philippine Insurrection against the United States by John R. M. Taylor and souvenir programs of different associations/schools.
Language:

English (65 percent), Filipino (5 percent) and Chinese (30 percent)

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