The Confucius Institute Munich and the International Youth Library want to promote the mediation of high-quality Chinese children's and youth literature in Germany for an interested international audience in the framework of a long-term and cross-institutional cooperation.
With its annual donations of Chinese literature, the Confucius Institute makes it possible to build up a stock of Chinese children's and youth literature on loan in the public children's library. The Consulate General of the People's Republic of China and the Confucius Institute initiated this project with a first-time generous donation of more than 350 current picture, children's and youth books from the People's Republic of China for the Children's Library and the Archive Library in April 2013.
In future, the International Youth Library will catalogue Chinese books not only in transcription but also in original script, even if for the time being the original script information is only available via Gateway Bayern or the Karlsruhe Virtual Catalogue.
The books are to be supplemented with original Chinese written annotations to make them more accessible to Chinese native speakers and international children's and young people's book research. In an ongoing catalogue enrichment project, webOPAC will be enriched with title translations, tables of contents and bio-bibliographical information on authors and illustrators that have been compiled and made available by the Confucius Institute. In the long term, it is planned to make it possible to display and search the original written information in webOPAC of the International Youth Library.