T.H. Tsien, 105, curator emeritus of the East Asian Collection at the University of Chicago’s Joseph Regenstein Library, died April 9. Tsien was considered one of the most influential Chinese librarian in the United States, working at the University from 1947 until 1978, and continuing his research and writing after his retirement. As a librarian for the National Library of China in 1937, he was responsible for packing and shipping 2,710 rare books in more than 30,000 volumes to the Library of Congress, which had agreed to take them to ensure their safety after Japan captured Shanghai. He came to the U.S. in 1947 to retrieve rare books he had sent six years prior, but civil war in China made his return impossible.  Tsien published 17 monographs and books and more than 150 articles in his career. In 2007, Nanjing (China) University, where he had studied as an undergraduate and where he had donated his private collection, named its new library after him.