A. East Asian Studies is an interdisciplinary field which brings together studies of the societies, civilizations, and interrelationships of the Asian nations, focusing on history, the humanities, and the social sciences, as mentioned above. This broad mandate for our collections thus involves many disciplines: history, languages, geography, economics, literature, sociology, politics, international relations, etc. As mentioned above, after periods when MSU programs focused on East Asia, all of Asia is now to be the center of university efforts. It is worth noting that three of the Asian nations (China, Japan, and India) are perennially among the top ten publishing nations in the world every year, and our modest collecting effort can only bring a fraction of this material to us. Again, the criterion for selection is the specific needs of MSU faculty and students, with some consideration for the Michigan public. One point to mention: while there are unifying factors (e.g., geography as seen from the U.S.) which make the entire continent of Asia a single unit for scholarly purposes, there are profound differences between regions, nations, and even localities. Most of the generalizations below refer to the China-Japan-Korea nexus.
History is a salient factor in every aspect of life in East Asia, even more so than in other parts of the world, because of the long course of civilization(s) in the area. The work of two of the MSU historians of East Asia is oriented to the 20th century, while the third historian ranges freely through history. Vernacular materials in Chinese and Japanese are essentially timeless and can be used as permanent research resources for history, language, literature, linguistics, and social science studies of all kinds, but collection should focus chiefly on the recent and contemporary periods. There is no need for extensive resources enabling a wide range of dissertation research, but there should be enough primary material from the major East Asian areas to give graduate students proper opportunities for identifying dissertation research, as well as for supporting faculty research in specified areas. Our databases can bring us some of the needed secondary material in English, and this must be supplemented by judicious firm ordering from local dealers and publishers, and by buying trips.
Materials in Chinese and Japanese need to be collected because 1) vernacular works form the primary sources for researchers at all levels; 2) they may represent or invite research and teaching avenues not available in Western languages; 3) translations may not exist, even for important works. (Note: cataloging in Chinese and Japanese characters grows more imperative every year. Some material from the Chinese heritage appears as multivolume collectanea. Approval plans for these materials are not available or useful, and firm ordering requires extensive “mining” of catalogs, development of dealer and publisher contacts, and periodic buying trips.The area(s) included in the study of East Asia described here are East Asia (including Mongolia), and Australasia and the Pacific Islands (excluding Hawaii). See the appended list of collection levels.
Preferences will be given to electronic formats. There are still many publications are not available in electronic format that need to be collected in traditional paper format. Feature films and documentary films will be collected as needed since there is an increasing request for films in teaching.
As noted above, while most collecting will focus on modern and contemporary materials, some material from past eras is desirable. Retrospective selection of “fill-in” material for serials and collectanea should be undertaken.