The Library has, historically, provided extensive support for the language and literature programs of the University, and our collections in languages and literatures form a very large part of the Library’s holdings. Measuring, alone, the portion of the collections which are classed in the Library of Congress Classification, the P classes (languages and literatures) hold more than 300,000 titles. This classification includes some disciplines (such as Classics, Egyptology, linguistics) which are not covered in this report, but most of this number is relevant. It should be noted that the title counts include books and serials on or about the particular languages, whether in that language or in English (or other languages). They do not reveal how many books we may have in the particular language (as these books may be on totally unrelated subjects, and not of interest to the program in question)
Library support for the East Asian languages and literatures is unusually strong for an institution of our size. We are the only library in the Boston Library Consortium to maintain an East Asian library, and to collect material in East Asian languages. Maintenance of such a collection presents some problems, first being the need for the language expertise on the part of the staff. There is no such language expertise in our Acquisitions and Cataloging Departments, so the East Asian Library (located within the Rockefeller Library) must provide help to Acquisitions for the ordering and processing of material, and then catalog the material itself. We also use a special cataloging system which can handle the vernacular characters of the East Asian languages. Our cataloging records from this system are then loaded (only annually) into our own online catalog, JOSIAH. Unfortunately, JOSIAH cannot display the vernacular characters, and so the records display only in transliterated form. We are trying to raise the funds to purchase a module for JOSIAH which would permit display of the vernacular.
Given this problem with the online cataloging systems, the title counts given below are not up-to-date, as the newer records have not be transferred into JOSIAH. Nevertheless, these are the numbers currently reported by JOSIAH for East Asian languages and literatures (all in the PL classification):
Language Number of Titles (12/98) Japanese 2,452 Korean 1,497 Chinese 3,820 TOTAL 7,769 The East Asian Library is maintained by a staff of two, a Curator (librarian) and an assistant. The Curator position is now vacant and we are hoping to hire a new Curator by Summer of 1999. We are also in the process of transferring the position of the East Asian Library within the Library organization. It has long reported to Special Collections, but will soon report to the Collection Development Department, as do some of our other branch libraries (Art Slide and Demography). We hope that this change will help to integrate the East Asian Library more clearly with other Library resources and services. A step was taken in this direction several years ago, when the Curator of the East Asian Library assumed responsibility for the all the collections supporting East Asian Studies, and not only those in the East Asian Library (i.e., the vernacular materials). Until then, English translations of East Asian literature were selected and purchased through Comparative Literature, and secondary works in all subjects were also purchased through other departments and programs (e.g., History, Economics).
Expenditures for East Asian Studies (including history, politics, and other subjects in addition to language and literature) have been at about the same level for the past three years. It appears, however, that we are purchasing more material that is distributed in the United States (the approval books), and spending less on the vernacular.
LIBRARY SUPPORT 1995/96 1996/97 1997/98 Firm Orders $21,021 $19,830 $17,051 Approval Plan 8,773 11,739 11,866 Serials 12,481 11,582 12,549 TOTAL SUPPORT $42,275 $43,151 $41,466 Until we find a new Curator for the East Asian Library, the responsibility for the collections is in the hands of our Interim Manager of the East Asian Library, Ms Jung-Kang McClain (Box A, x2171, Jung-Kang_McClain@brown.edu), and the Head of Collection Development, William S. Monroe (Box A, x2406,
William_Monroe@brown.edu).
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