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The Harvard–Yenching Library is the primary location for East Asia-related collections at
Harvard Library Harvard Library is the network of libraries and services at Harvard University, a private Ivy League university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Harvard Library is the oldest library system in the United States and both the largest academic librar ...
at
Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...
. In addition to East Asian languages ( Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Tibetan,
Manchu The Manchus (; ) are a Tungusic peoples, Tungusic East Asian people, East Asian ethnic group native to Manchuria in Northeast Asia. They are an officially recognized Ethnic minorities in China, ethnic minority in China and the people from wh ...
, and Mongolian), it houses collections in
European languages There are over 250 languages indigenous to Europe, and most belong to the Indo-European language family. Out of a total European population of 744 million as of 2018, some 94% are native speakers of an Indo-European language. The three larges ...
and Southeast Asian language ( Vietnamese). Totaling more than 1.5 million volumes, the Harvard–Yenching Library has one of the largest collections in East Asian studies outside of Asia. The library has been located at 2 Divinity Avenue on the
Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a List of cities in the United Kingdom, city and non-metropolitan district in the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It is the county town of Cambridgeshire and is located on the River Cam, north of London. As of the 2021 Unit ...
campus of
Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...
since around 1957. The building was originally built in 1929 for Harvard's Institute of Geographical Exploration, and currently houses part of the Harvard-Yenching Institute and the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, in addition to the Harvard–Yenching Library.


History


19th century

In 1879, Ko K'un-hua ( zh, t=戈鯤化), a scholar from
China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...
, was engaged to teach the first course in the Chinese language offered at Harvard University. The small collection of books that was purchased for this course became Harvard College Library's first acquisitions in any East Asian language.


20th century

In 1914, two Japanese professors ( Masaharu Anesaki and Unokichi Hattori from om Tokyo Imperial University to lecture at Harvard. They donated several important sets of Japanese publications on
Sinology Sinology, also referred to as China studies, is a subfield of area studies or East Asian studies involved in social sciences and humanities research on China. It is an academic discipline that focuses on the study of the Chinese civilization p ...
and
Buddhism Buddhism, also known as Buddhadharma and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion and List of philosophies, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or ...
to the Harvard College Library, thus launching Harvard's Japanese collection. In 1927, Archibald Cary Coolidge, head of Harvard's libraries, asked Alfred Kaiming Chiu, then a graduate student at Harvard, to organize and catalog these collections. The library was formally founded in 1928, as the Chinese-Japanese Library of the Harvard-Yenching Institute. Following
World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
, the library began collecting more social science publications. The once predominantly humanistic collection evolved into a research library that encompasses East Asian materials in all academic disciplines. A. Kaiming Chiu served as head librarian of the library until his retirement in 1964, after which he was succeeded by Eugene W. Wu. In 1951, a Korean collection was added. In 1965, the Chinese-Japanese Library of the Harvard-Yenching Institute was renamed the Harvard–Yenching Library to reflect the expanded nature of the library's collections. The Library eventually added Tibetan, Mongolian and Manchu publications, and Western language monographs and journals. In 1973, a Vietnamese collection was added. In 1976, management of the library shifted from the independent Harvard-Yenching Institute to the Harvard College Library. In 1998, Eugene Wu retired and was succeeded by James Cheng.


21st century

In 2003, the library celebrated its 75th anniversary with a symposium and the publication of a volume of scholarly articles on the history of the Library and its collections. In 2009, the library announced a six-year, multimillion-dollar project to digitize major sections of its rare books collection in cooperation with the National Library of China. In 2020, James Cheng retired. During his time as head librarian, he oversaw large-scale digitization of the library's rare and special collections. James Cheng was succeeded by Jidong Yang in August 2022.


References


External links


Official website

Publications

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