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History of the East Asian Library at the University of Pittsburgh

Overview

The University Library System (ULS) at the University of Pittsburgh (PITT) began its Chinese collection in 1960 after PITT was selected as one of the 20 National Defense Education Act centers for Chinese studies. Five years later, the East Asian Library (EAL) was established to include also the Japanese collection. The Korean materials were added to the collection from the year 2000.

Today, the EAL has become one of the most prominent East Asian collections in North America with over 431,167 volumes of monographs, about 900 titles of periodicals, around 14,475 reels of microfilms, over 27 current newspapers, 4,400 multi-media resources, and 18 major area studies online databases. As of June 2009, the library ranks the 14th in size among all the East Asian collections in North America and is the largest resource center in the Tri-state area (Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia). The library’s primary mission is to support the Asian Studies Center for instruction and research in Chinese, Japanese and Korean studies.

The EAL Collections

Chinese Collection

The EAL consists of four collections—Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and English languages. With over 275,000 of Chinese monographic volumes, 700 current serial titles, 19 current newspapers, 10,364 microforms, 1,747 CD-ROMs, and 3,232 multi-media resources, the Chinese collection ranks the 13th (as of June 2009) 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.

Japanese collection

The Japanese collection ranks the 15th (as of June 2009) in North America with over 127,900 monographic volumes, 246 current serial titles, 2,941 microforms, 704 CD-ROMs, and 481 multi-media resources. The Japanese collection is strong 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.

Mitsui Collection
One of the valuable part of the Japanese Collection is the Mitsui Collection 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 – about 33,500 of Japanese imprints, 10,700 of Western languages imprints, and 20,000 Japanese and Western languages journals. 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.

Korean collection

The Korean collection 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 19th (as of June 2009) among Korean collections in North America, with a holding of more than 12,800 volumes of Korean monographs, 32 titles of current Korean periodicals, and 676 visual/ audio materials. The collection is strong in core reference materials of Korean studies, Korean economics and politics, history, literature, language, philosophy, etc.

The EAL Services
The East Asian Gateway Service

One of the EAL’s most successful and well-known programs is the East Asian Gateway Service (EAGS). The EAGS was established in October 1998 by a grant from the U.S. Federal Institute of Museum and Library Services. Since October 2001, the EAGS has been financially supported by the University of Pittsburgh Library System. The EAGS is a pioneer in developing a transcontinental interlibrary partnership.

The EAGS,  administered by the EAL of the ULS, focuses on free delivery of full-text Chinese and Korean language academic publications to researchers. The EAGS delivers Chinese documents to any individual researchers for research and teaching purpose or non-profit organizations who cannot find the needed item in any U.S. libraries. However, the service for Korean documents offers delivery to the University of Pittsburgh faculty and students only. The service is reciprocal, as the ULS provides document delivery service of English language materials to its Chinese and Korean partner libraries. In the past nine years, the EAGS has succeeded in not only providing an effective research support to thousands of China scholars in the United States and researchers and scientists in China, but also in creating an extensive partnership with 16 academic or research libraries in mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan. According to the EAGS’ statistics, from 1999 to 2008(FY), it received a total number of 17,734 requests; since 2003, more than half of the requests are from the Chinese partner libraries. The geographical map of the EAGS’s U.S.-based users covers 40 states in America, more than 130 colleges and universities, and many other organizations.

The Japan Information Service

The Japan Information Service (JIS), formerly called Japan Information Center (JIC), was established in 1996 as a collaborative effort between the University of Pittsburgh and the Japan Center for Intercultural Communication (JCIC) in Tokyo. Since 1998, the center has been solely administered by the University Library System, with personnel support partially funded through Japan Council at the Asian Studies Center, University of Pittsburgh. The main mission of JIS is to provide Japan related information to faculty and students at the University of Pittsburgh, and to community users in general. JIS covers broad subject areas such as economics, politics and government policies, business and industries, cultures, language, statistic data, and so on.


The JIS makes extensive use of the Japanese reference collection, such as EHS Law Bulletin Series, statistical yearbooks, biographical dictionaries, white papers, Japanese paintings, almanacs, directories of organizations, corporations, and research institutions. The JIS also has access to the Nikkei Telecom 21 which consists of the Nikkei Corporate Profiles, the Nikkei Who’s Who, various business and economic information, and the full text database of four Nikkei Newspapers.


In addition, the EAL subscribes to the following electronic databases specific to Japanese studies:  JapanKnowledge, a portal to Japanese encyclopedias, dictionaries and databases, and Kikuzo II Bijuaru which is a full text database for Asahi Shimbun from 1945 to present.

Gift and Exchange Partners

The EAL has established partnerships with over 40 libraries in mainland China, Hong Kong,
Taiwan, Japan, Korea, and other countries on gift donations and exchange of printed materials. The most recent
partner library is Yanbian University, China, for exchange of materials published in Western countries and Korean materials published in Yangbian area and North Korea.

Librarian Training and Exchange

To further strengthen connections with its partners from China, the East Asian Library (EAL) in cooperation with the ULS, has been administering and coordinating the librarian training and exchange program since its inception in 1997. As of February 2011, 39 Chinese librarians and library school faculty members from 16 different research institutes have been trained each for a period ranging from three months to 12 months. These Chinese library professionals have gone through hands-on training in the areas of information technology, user services, technical processing, and library management at the ULS in conjunction with research and course work at School of Information Sciences.

As an exchange, the ULS has sent 14 librarians to Chinese partner libraries to give lectures on recent development in American libraries, to observe Chinese library operations, and to work with Chinese colleagues.

In addition, the East Asian Library (EAL) has hosted 4 visiting scholars from Korea and 1 visiting librarian from Japan each for a stay ranging from 3 months to 1 year.


Outreach Activities

The EAL has actively participated in on-campus and local community events to showcase library services and
resources. Highlights of outreach activities include coordinating the International Week and Asian Studies Center display booths at various events, supporting Chinese School of Pittsburgh, Organization of Asian Americans, Chinese Association for Science and Technology, Chinese Scholars Organization, the Japan Association of Greater Pittsburgh, hosting several exhibitions about Chinese, Japanese, and Korean cultures and languages, and participating in annual Dragon Boat Festival organized by the Pittsburgh City since 2002.

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.