The New York Times just published an excellent piece on E. Gene Smith’s collection of Tibetan Buddhist texts and their new home in Chengdu, China. The texts are housed in a new library bearing Smith’s name at Southwest University for Nationalities in Chengdu.
The Times article can be found here:
Mr. Smith, who amassed the largest collection of Tibetan Buddhist texts outside Tibet (over 12,000 items), passed in 2010. His obituary can be found here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/29/world/asia/29smith.html
Along with a lifelong passion for Eastern studies and Buddhism, proficiency in 32 languages, and serving as a Field Officer and Field Director for the Library of Congress, Mr. Smith established the Tibetan Buddhist Resource Center. The TBRC is dedicated to the electronic preservation of Tibetan Buddhist texts, and their website can be found here:
The Tibetan Buddhist Resource Center maintains digital copies of all texts collected by Mr. Smith (and new texts being archived by librarians in Chengdu), and can be read online. Access requires creating a user account and requesting permission to access the online collection. The Times claims anyone with internet access can gain access.
