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昨日，美国芝加哥大学东亚图书馆馆长周原博士讣告：全球闻名的图书馆学大师、美国芝加哥大学荣誉教授、原东亚图书馆馆长钱存训先生于2015年4月9日下午在美国芝加哥驾鹤西去，享年105岁。一代宗师，与世长辞，惊悉噩耗，万分悲痛！
钱存训先生是20世纪以来全球最伟大的华美图书馆学宗师、最杰出的中国造纸技术史大师、美国东亚图书馆的卓越奠基人和开拓者。钱存训先生1928年考入金陵大学攻读图书馆学，1932年毕业以后，先后就职于上海交通大学图书馆和国立北平图书馆南京办事处，抗战爆发后，于1941年冬受命护送国立北平图书馆的30万册珍贵古籍善本至美国国会图书馆寄存，后受邀担任美国芝加哥大学东亚图书馆馆长和芝加哥大学远东语言与文明系教职，1957年获美国芝加哥大学博士学位。1962年，其博士学位论文以《书于竹帛》为书名由美国芝加哥大学出版社正式出版，并迅速被翻译成中文、日文、韩文等多种文字，在国际学术界产生十分广泛的影响。1978年，钱存训先生应英国剑桥大学中国科学技术史大师李约瑟教授的邀请，主编《中国科学技术史》之中国造纸与印刷技术史卷。1984年，钱存训先生著《中国科学技术史》第5卷第1册《纸与印刷》正式出版，成为研究中国古代造纸术和印刷史的顶级学术著作。
钱存训先生一生笔耕不辍，著述等身，学术成就遍及中国造纸技术史、印刷技术史、古籍版本学、目录学、图书馆学等多个领域，影响至为深远。在担任美国芝加哥大学东亚图书馆馆长期间，钱存训先生白手起家，将芝加哥大学东亚图书馆缔造成为西方最为著名的东亚图书馆之一，贡献卓越。在担任芝加哥大学远东语言与文明系教授和图书馆学研究生院教授期间，培养了一大批杰出的图书馆学家，桃李满天下，美国哈佛大学哈佛燕京图书馆馆长郑炯文先生、普林斯顿大学东亚图书馆馆长马泰来先生等一批美国东亚图书馆的杰出领袖均是钱存训先生的得意门生。在20世纪以来的美国东亚图书馆发展史上，前有裘开明先生，后有钱存训先生，惟此二者堪称宗师，无人可以出其右。
钱存训先生一生热爱祖国，一生致力于将抗战时期寄存于美国国会图书馆的国立北平图书馆珍贵古籍善本归还中国国家图书馆，惜因中美关系和海峡两岸关系的原因，一直未果，引为至憾。改革开放以后，钱存训先生多次往返中美之间，致力于推动中美图书馆界的交流与合作。新世纪后又将个人的全部藏书捐赠给母校南京大学，设立钱存训图书馆，以嘉惠学林，奖掖后学。钱存训先生尊师重道，一生对授业恩师北刘南杜（刘国钧、杜定友）无比崇敬，凡北刘南杜的只字片语均珍爱不已，迄今保存着不少当年从大陆带到美国如今在大陆极其罕见的北刘南杜文字。近20年来，钱存训先生一直在关注国内的北刘南杜学术研究，曾多次来信和发电子邮件嘱后学收集北刘南杜的相关研究资料，其尊师重道之精神令人感佩！钱存训先生对年轻人关爱有加，提携奖掖不已，深受大洋两岸学人的尊崇。后学结识钱存训先生已近30年，但是并没有多少机会亲近钱存训先生，多限于书信和电子邮件往来。尽管如此，钱存训先生对后学亦不遗余力地奖掖提携。后学编辑《裘开明图书馆学论文选集》时，钱存训先生欣然赐序，褒奖鼓励；7年前，后学专程赴芝加哥拜见，钱存训先生在自己的宅第盛情款待，亲自调制咖啡和沏茶，并不顾98岁高龄亲自陪同后学赴芝加哥唐人街，在上海餐馆设午宴款待后学，餐叙数小时，令人感动不已，迄今记忆犹新。
钱存训先生的仙逝是中美，乃至世界图书馆界的一个重大损失，我们为失去这样一位德高望重、学贯中西的一代宗师深感悲痛！谨以此文，深切哀悼钱存训先生。
钱存训先生永垂不朽！
附周原博士发来的英文讣告
Tsuen-hsuin (T.H.) Tsien, Curator Emeritus of the East Asian
Collection of the Joseph Regenstein Library and Professor Emeritus
of Far Eastern Languages and Civilizations (now East Asian
Languages and Civilizations) of the University of Chicago, passed
away in Chicago yesterday, April 9, 2015, at the age of 105. T.H.
lived a long and extraordinarily full life. He liked to say that he
was born under the last emperor of China, in 1909, in Taixian,
Jiangsu, China. In 1927, before entering university, he
participated in the Northern Expedition, a military effort of the
Nationalist government of China that resulted in the unification of
China. In 1928, T.H. entered Jinling University (the precursor of
Nanjing University), from which he was graduated in 1932 with a
degree in Library Science. After graduation, he worked first in
Shanghai at the Jiaotong University Library, and then in Nanjing at
the Nanjing Branch of the Peking Library (the forerunner of the
National Library of China). In December, 1941, he was personally
responsible for shipping 300,000 rare books from the library to the
United States Library of Congress for safe-keeping during the war;
the books left the port of Shanghai, then still an open city, just
days before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and made it safely
to Washington. After the conclusion of the war, T.H. went to
Washington to arrange for the return of the books. However, the
outbreak of civil war in China made their return at the time
impossible, and T.H. remained in America together with the books.
In 1947, Herrlee G. Creel (1905-1994; Martin A. Ryerson Professor
Emeritus of Chinese Studies at the University) invited T.H. to the
University of Chicago to manage the Far Eastern Library (now East
Asian Collection). T.H. remained in Chicago thereafter.
It is no exaggeration to say that T.H. Tsien was the most
influential Chinese librarian in America. Not only did he develop
one of the country’s greatest East Asian libraries at the
University of Chicago, but he also trained a generation of students
for East Asian libraries around the country including those who
went on to head the East Asian libraries at Harvard and Princeton.
In addition, his published scholarship continues to have a profound
influence on the fields of Chinese bibliography, paleography, and
science and technology. He received a Ph.D. from the University of
Chicago in 1957; his dissertation, published by the University of
Chicago Press in 1962 as Written on Bamboo and Silk: The
Beginnings of Chinese Books and Inscriptions, is still regarded
as a classic in the field. In 1978, after retiring from his
position as Curator of the East Asian Collection, T.H. accepted an
invitation from Joseph Needham to participate in Needham’s great
Science and civilisation in China project. In 1984, T.H.
contributed Vol. 5.1: Paper and Printing, the first volume
in the series to be published under a name other than Needham’s.
After this time, he remained active. In 2011, his book Collected
Writings on Chinese Culture, was published by the Chinese
University of Hong Kong Press. It includes thirty essays on
“Ancient Documents and Artifacts,” “Paper, Ink, and Printing,”
“Cultural Exchange and
Librarianship,” “Biographies of Eminent Scholars,”
“Memoir of a Centenarian,” and “Essays about the Author.” The
volume also contains prefaces by Edward L. Shaughnessy and Anthony
C. Yu, his colleagues at the University of Chicago, relating many
more of his contributions to the University and to scholarship.
T.H. Tsien has now rejoined his beloved wife Wen-ching Hsu, who
was one of the first instructors of Chinese at the University, and
his eldest daughter Ginger, both of whom passed away in 2008. He is
survived by two other daughters, Mary Tsien Dunkel and Gloria
Tsien, as well as by his nephew Xiaowen Qian, Assistant to the
Curator for the East Asian Collection of the Regenstein Library. He
has established a legacy that will endure as long as scholars
continue to value books.
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