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Go Book Donation Raises Funds for AGA, Expands Empty Sky Collection

Call it the Joseph Yao tesuji. The ripple effects of his recent donation of his collection of 300 go books to the AGA make Yao's move a tremendously skillful move, maximizing the use of his books on both a local and global level. A Boeing Jet Propulsion Laboratory retiree who lives in Los Angeles, Yao was a lifelong devotee of go, buying hundreds of books. “Since it was hard to get go books in the US, he sent $100 or more a month to Japan to buy the newest go books,” Andy Okun tells the E-Journal.

“He studied the books assiduously, even after having a stroke, but further declines in his health means he can no longer use them, according to his wife, Hong-Dan Zheng, so they made this arrangement with the AGA to get the books into the hands of people who could use them.” The Rochester (NY) -based Empty Sky Go Club (l) was the high bidder in an online auction of the books in April, and the club promptly donated the entire collection to the Greg Lefler Wing of the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) Library, where over 100 go books are already available via the WorldCat inter-library system. “We hope this extensive collection will be utilized by go players not only around the country, but around the world,” said the Empty Sky’s Steve Colburn. The $2,200 raised by the auction will fund a small go-and-mathematics college scholarship, Okun reports .