Thank you all for attending the 2024 conference of NACIRA, the National Committee for Information Resources on Asia. This is the first NACIRA conference to be held in-person for five years, with the previous one in December 2019, shortly before the COVID-19 pandemic. Although we have been able to continue many of our activities in the intervening years via online meetings, I am pleased that we are finally able to meet together in person. I am very grateful to the British Library for hosting today’s event, and to Hamish Todd and especially to Sara Chiesura for making the arrangements. I think we can be all the more appreciative given our knowledge of the challenges which colleagues at the British Library have faced over the past year.
I would also like to thank today’s speakers, each of who has agreed to speak on the broad theme of earth, environmental, and planetary sciences. We have speakers from several prestigious institutions which, in some cases, you might not automatically think of in connection with Asian studies, but which as we will see today contain important resources for those concerned with the history and cultures of Asia.
The title of this conference was partly inspired by a famous quote from Immanuel Kant, translated as: ‘Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the oftener and the more steadily we reflect on them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.’ This felt especially relevant to our conference because, as librarians and curators, we are less concerned with the direct study of man, nature, and society than we are with preserving and exploring the record of how human beings have sought to understand, document, and convey their relationship with these subjects. The collections we manage testify to the fact that human intelligence is not merely a passive observer of the cosmos, but an essential criterion and point of reference for all investigations of the heavens, the earth, and the natural environment.
In planning this conference, it was necessary to use the term science. Yet, I hoped that the title Heavens Above, Knowledge Below would evoke the broader reflection that our knowledge and experience of the earth and heavens encompass far more than science alone. Across the ages, different peoples, cultures, and civilizations—each shaped by unique cosmologies, values, symbols, and histories—have conceived the natural world and its interactions in profoundly diverse ways, reflecting what might be called characteristic ways of being in the world. The scientific paradigm, often characterized as a distinctively Western approach to understanding the world, is but one of many such perspectives.
While science provides powerful tools for exploring the cosmos and the earth, it is enriched by the cultural frameworks and human experiences that shape and inform it. As curators of knowledge, our responsibility is to preserve and engage with these plural approaches, ensuring that the study of the natural world remains connected to the diverse tapestry of human meaning and interpretation. This task holds particular significance for those of us managing collections of Asian heritage, where the myriad ways in which the natural environment has been experienced and represented across cultures offer invaluable insights into the interplay of human perception and the natural world.
Edward Weech, Chair, NACIRA
6 December 2024