According to the data provided by Zheng Jiong-wen, the director of Harvard Yanjing Library, during the paper interview on April 20, 2000, at present, the collection of Harvard Yanjing Library is nearly 6.5438+0.5 million volumes, including more than 800,000 Chinese documents, nearly 350,000 Japanese documents and nearly 200,000 Korean documents. Outside China, Harvard Yanjing Library is one of the two largest and best libraries in the western world (the other is the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.).
New Four Books Bowl: 9 volumes, Fang Yinglong, Ming Wanli
Why is the collection of books in Harvard Yanjing Library so rich? This should start from the source of this library. Harvard Yanjing Library 1928 opens. That's a private library owned by Harvard Yanjing Society. At that time, it was called "Hanhe Library", which mainly collected China and Japanese literature. From 65438 to 0976, Harvard Yanjing Library became a branch of the library system of Harvard College of Arts and Sciences, and changed its name to "Harvard Yanjing Library".
Alfred Kaiming Chiu was the first dean of Harvard Yanjing Library and the first Chinese American librarian. Under his leadership, the number of rare books in the library has increased rapidly, reaching 1936, and the collection has grown to more than 70,000 volumes. During the Japanese invasion of China, many ancient books were scattered in Shanghai and other places, so the library bought a large number of books; After World War II, a large number of ancient books flowed out of Japan, and Alfred Kaiming Chiu visited Japan many times.
Cai Yushu; Song stunt. Cai Tie, the treasure of ancient incense Zhai. [chongzhen engraving]
In addition, the development of Harvard Yanjing Library is closely related to the rise of American Sinology and East Asian Studies after World War II. According to Zheng Jiong-wen, "After World War II, the United States became the leader of western countries, and because it wanted to understand the national conditions of several countries, a large number of East Asian libraries were exhibited", and Harvard Yanjing Library was the best among such libraries.
On the official website of Harvard Yanjing Library, we can see that under the digitization project, there are 25 categories of documents, including China Old Customs Data, Harvard Yanjing Library China Rare Books, Christian Missionary Documents, China Rare Local Records, Rubbings Collection, Maurice China Old Photos, Women's Works in Ming and Qing Dynasties, and Professor Han Nan's Collection.