East Asian Library > About > History
Did you know that the Chinese Collection at the EAst Asian Library ranks the 14th in North America?
History of the East Asian Library at University of Pittsburgh
Overview
The University of Pittsburgh began its Chinese collection in 1960 after Pitt was selected as one of the twenty National Defense Education Act centers for Chinese studies. Five years later, the East Asian Library was established to include also the Japanese collection. The Korean materials were also added to the collection since 2000. Today, the East Asian Library has become one of the most prominent East Asian collections in North America, with rich information resources to support the dynamic teaching and research on East Asian Studies at Pitt.
In recent years, the East Asian Library has expanded its collections to include electronic resources, and has established relationships with prominent libraries and information centers throughout East Asia. In 1995, the East Asian Library received a grant from Japan Council for Intercultural Communication to establish a Japan Information Center. In the fall of 1998, the Library also received a National Leadership Grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services and established a East Asian Gateway Service . In July 2004, a Korean academic journal delivery service was also established. With such developments, this library has emerged as one of the most rapidly growing full-fledged and well-equipped information centers for East Asian Studies in North America.
The Chinese Collection
With over 248,000 volumes of Chinese monographic volume holdings, 755 current serial titles, and other resources, the Chinese collection ranks the 14th in North America. The Chinese collection has notable strengths in traditional Chinese literature, philosophy, and history. Other areas of strength are Chinese classics and religion, Ming and Qing gazetteers, local histories, and imperial court archives. With an increasing emphasis on modern China, the collection contains relatively comprehensive publications of Chinese yearbooks, statistics, and Cultural Revolution publications.The Chinese collection supports major research and teaching activities concerning China in several disciplines: anthropology, business, classics, East Asian languages and literatures, economics, fine arts, history, law, linguistics, music, political science, religious studies, and sociology..... (Click here for more information about Chinese collection resources and services).
The Japanese Collection
With over 116,800 Japanese monographic volume holdings, 300 current serial titles, and other resources, the Japanese collection ranks the 15th in North America. The Japanese collection has notable strengths in Japanese economic history, linguistics and pedagogy, medical history, modern literature, history and culture of Japanese movies, pre-modern history of art, and religion of pre-modern period. New subjects are also under development, such as classics, religion of contemporary period, and mass media and identity of contemporary period.
One of the valuable part of the Japanese Collection is the Mitsui Collection recently donated by the Institute for Financial and Economic Research (金融経済研究所) of the former Mitsui Bank. The Collection contains over 64,000 volumes of books and journals - 33,498 of Japanese imprints (5,712 published before the end of World War II, and 27,786 published afterward), 10,701 of Western languages imprints, and 20,000 Japanese and Western languages journals. The latest published works date from 1990. It is one of the best collections on Japanese finance, the former Japanese colonies (Taiwan, Manchuria, Korea) and international finance. It also contains materials on labor problem, social movement, company and local histories, pre- and post-war biographies, and an assortment of statistical annuals and other kinds of yearbooks… (click here for more information on Japanese collection resources and services).
The Korean Collection
The Korean collection at the University of Pittsburgh supports major research and teaching activities concerning Korea in several academic disciplines: business, East Asian languages and literatures, economics, history, international relations, linguistics, political science, and sociology. It is comparatively a new collection, with vigorous growth in recent years, especially with supplemental acquisition budget support from the Asian Studies Center. The collection ranks 23rd among 54 Korean collections in North America, with a holding of more than 6000 volumes of Korean monographs, 30 titles of current Korean periodicals, and other resources. The collection is strong in core reference materials of Korean studies, Korean economics and politics, history, literature, language, Korean movie, philosophy.... (click here for more information on Korean collection resources and services).
About our logo...
The Chinese emblem of EAL was written by Wang Xizhi (王羲之, AD303-361, also Wang Hsi-chih ). He was a very famous calligrapher and lived in Jin Dynasty. His masterpiece has been studied by generations of students and used as examples to learn and practice the art of calligraphy. We collected the characters he wrote and modified a little bit to create our Chinese logo.
Click to view Fullsize of EAL Chinese Logo.
Here is the copy of Wang's very famous calligraph work: Lan Ting Xu.
Copy-1(full-text) Copy-2(part of)
