By Chao Ching-Hua, Chen Hsuan-Yu, Gregory Laslo

In 2015, as Taiwan’s national-level literature museum, the National Museum of Taiwan Literature took the lead to bring together local literature museums from all over Taiwan to form the Literature Museum Family (LMF). Through these connections, museums can work together to make long-term projects a reality. Currently, the LMF consists of 37 partners located across Taiwan, Kinmen, and the outlying islands.

Among the LMF are memorial halls and residences dedicated to individual authors, local literature museums and archives affiliated with county and city governments, as well as literature museums on school campuses. They are all individual and unique, but all share close ties with the development of Taiwan literature, not only connecting the creations of writers to their lives, but also bringing together local customs, history, and memories in their respective urban settings. Together, they weave together a beautiful tapestry of culture on this island, and are a precious gift passed down from previous generations.

The limited resources of many local literature museums and archives makes it difficult for them to both attend to the work of preserving their collections while also holding regular literary education and promotional activities. In the spirit of cooperation and the common good, since 2020, NMTL has been utilizing its national-level resources to assist local literature museums in better preserving their collections. From personal visits and workshops to formal education and operational assistance, NMTL hopes to achieve concrete, verifiable results by formulating our strategies according to the needs and conditions of each institution. To date, NMTL has completed work with seven institutions, restored 118 cultural artifacts, reorganized 2,055 artifacts into collections, and held three collection workshops.

Scattered across Taiwan, these institutions of literature give readers and travelers a chance to delve into the lives of writers and experience the emotions contained in their work. Through assistance with collections, NMTL is working hard alongside local institutions and organizations to preserve Taiwan’s unique and locally representative literature, making them available to the public and allowing them to continue telling their stories to future generations.