TheC.V. Starr East Asian Library is alibrary atColumbia University, holding collections for the study ofEast Asia in the United States. It is one of the largest East Asian libraries in North America, consisting of over one million volumes ofChinese,Japanese,Korean,Tibetan,Mongolian,Manchu, and Western-language materials, almost 7,500 periodical titles, and extensive special collections. It is located in Kent Hall, on the university'sMorningside Heights campus.
The library was established in 1902.Seth Low, president of Columbia University at the time, wished to start a Chinese library. The foundation for the library and the Chinese collection began with a donation byEmpress Dowager Cixi of the 5,044 volume encyclopediaGujin Tushu Jicheng, one of three copies of the book currently located outside of China.[1] The Japanese collection began in 1927 by ProfessorRyūsaku Tsunoda, who acquired some 5,000 volumes from the JapaneseImperial Household Agency, and the Korean collection began in 1931 with a donation of nearly 1,000 books by Korean students at Columbia.[1]
In the decades after its foundation, the library established materials exchange programs with almost every important university and government library and archive in Taiwan and China.[2] Its relationship with theNational Library of China inBeijing began in 1963, through which it was able to acquire, at significantly cheaper prices, materials that would have otherwise been impossible to access through its old method of buying books in Hong Kong and Japan. Over the duration of the exchange program, Columbia received copies of thePeople's Daily, theRed Flag, and theBeijing Review, a "complete set of Communist law books," in addition to transcriptions of opera performances, recordings of folk music and orchestral performances using Chinese instruments, and films of traditional Chinese paintings.[3][4] However, these programs stopped in the early 2000s, when theColumbia University Libraries discontinued its exchange department.[2]
In 1968, the library received a 6,000-item collection of rare Chinese books from GeneralLi Hanhun, which on its own was described as "equal to the top institutional Chinese libraries in [the United States]" in the 1960s. The books were smuggled out of China in 1949, and were mostlyprinted on rice paper using hand-carved blocks.[5]
The library was gifted $1 million by theStarr Foundation in 1980, which were put towards the renovation of its Kent Hall facilities. In gratitude, the library was named forCornelius Vander Starr.[6]
The special collections of the C.V. Starr Library hold rare books and materials including Chinese local histories and genealogies,Edo period woodblock-printed books, and rare Korean books, as well as Chineseoracle bones, ajade book in Manchu and Chinese, early-twentieth century Chinese paper god prints, and Japanese woodblock prints, maps, and paintings.[1] The Japanese rare books and special collections include theKōbō Abe collection, consisting of the original works and manuscripts of the author, as well as the Barbara Curtis AdachiBunraku collection and the Makino Mamoru Collection on the History of East Asian Film.[7] The library's Korean collection holds, among other things, an extremely rare early printed version ofYongbieocheonga, volumes 9 and 10, the first work ever written inHangul.[8] The Tibetan collection, which began actively collecting in the late 1990s, includes the manuscripts of Tibetan journalist Gegen Darje Tarchin andAnagarika Govinda, and several editions of theTibetan Buddhist canon, some dating as early as the 14th century.[9]
40°48′26″N73°57′42″W / 40.807273°N 73.961627°W /40.807273; -73.961627
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