Mr. Ye Rong-zhong was a greatly respected intellectual in Taiwan. His manuscripts, documents, books, and several other historical items that he collected during his life, from the period of Japanese occupation in Taiwan to the post war period in the 70s, were donated to the library of National Tsing Hua University by his family in 2003. Moreover, with the assistance of Mr. Lin Xiao-xin and several other Diaoyutai (Senkaku) Islands activists, the library was successively gifted publications, manuscripts, and literature pertaining to “Defending Diaoyutai movement” events and other relevant events ran by Taiwanese students who were in Europe, USA, Hong Kong, and Taiwan at the time. These items were the basis for forming the library’s special collection. Items gifted to the University and added into the special collection include: Digitized archives (2008) on and physical paintings and calligraphies (2014) created by Japanese and Taiwanese people during the period of Japanese occupation in Taiwan. These are collections of high historical and artistic values. They were initially collected and kept for years by professors Yang Rur-bin and Fang Sheng-ping in the University’s Department of Chinese Literature; manuscripts and historical records (2009) of Mr. Ji Gang (real name: Zhao Yue-shan), who had been engaged in the underground anti-Japanese movement in northeast China during the anti-Japanese war period, and later became well-known for his book “Billowing Liaohe”; literature manuscripts (2010) of Mr. Tang Wen-biao, who had been actively involved in the “Defending Diaoyutai movement” as well as the “Taiwan nativist literature movement”; photocopies of texts on Taoist rituals that had originated from Guangxi during China’s cultural revolution; and bronze artifacts from Indochina (2013).

While working on the “Ye Rong-zhong Collection” and the “Defending Diaoyutai Movement Collection”, the library began in 2004 to systematically collect and organize historical archives related to the university. Setting the establishment of National Tsing Hua University in Hsinchu as a starting point for collecting historical archives, various forms of relevant historical information and items were collected. These include literature, artifacts, photographs, films, audios, and documentations concerning former principals, alumni and staff, administrative and teaching departments, Meichu games, university anniversary events, and graduation ceremonies. Additionally, interviews carried out with alumni and senior professors serve as sources of oral histories, while continuous efforts are made to enrich the collection of historical literature related to the university. Starting from 2008, the library began working with all university administration and academic offices as a team to create a vast chronicle of the university’s history by expanding on the variety of historical archives to be stored and effectively integrating historical records regarding the university’s developments from different time periods.