1. Research Facility After the Center for American Studies was formally established, Dr. Wang began to raise funds, with NT$10 million being raised for the construction of the library. The building site was located next to the old building of the Institute of History and Philology, which was the only space available on Academia Sinica campus, consisting of three stories and a basement: the offices of the “Committee on Sino-American Cooperation in Humanities and Social Sciences” and Center for American Studies, conference rooms, research rooms, and a lecture hall with a capacity of 300 people on the first floor; the library and reading rooms on the second floor; stacks on the third floor. Aside from the stacks in the library, there were only eight research rooms. Due to the increase in personnel, even with the addition of some space from the library, the available space remained insufficient. Under the five-year development plans of Academia Sinica, the Institute cooperated with the Institute of Modern History to build a three-story research building beginning August 1980. The Jin-Mei Building, located across from the library’s current site, was completed in July 1981. The building is approximately 1,650 square meters, with its space divided into 33 research rooms, three conference rooms of various sizes, and a basement. The foundation of the Jin-Mei Building was originally a riverbank, and with insufficient time allotted for the soil to settle, cracks appeared frequently on the walls of the main structure. A structural appraisal revealed that the building required reinforcement to address safety concerns. In 1999, after the 921 Earthquake, the safety of the building became an even greater concern. The Institute raised funds from enterprises and completed repair work in 2001. Currently, the third floor of the Jin-Mei Building is reserved for the exclusive use by the Lingnan Fine Arts Museum, to display collections of the Lingnan School donated from famous artist and calligrapher Au Ho-nien. In order to ensure a safe research environment and to accommodate newly recruited research fellows, the Institute submitted a request to Academia Sinica to construct a new research building, which was eventually approved, and a part of the lot belonging to the Institute of History and (up) The first floor reception area of the IEAS research building; (down) The first floor lobby of the IEAS research building IILaying the Groundwork: The Foundation of Academic Capacity 13 50 Years and Beyond: The History and Prospects of the Institute of European and American Studies
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