East Asian Resources

University of Maryland has recently add new digitizations and newly acquired papers in the Gordon W. Prange Collection.

New digitizations and acquisitions include:

• Digitized photo albums and loose photos - Mead Smith Karras papers
• Digitized slides - Victor E. Delnore papers
• Digitized slides - Roy W. Simonson papers
• Digitized oral histories audio files & transcripts - Marlene Mayo Oral Histories

Direct link to Enlarged Yeonhaengrok Collections 연행록총간 燕行錄叢刊增補版 (KRpia).

Library catalog page of Enlarged Yeonhaengrok Collections 연행록총간 燕行錄叢刊增補版 (KRpia).

The Yeonhaengrok Collection is a collection of travelogues recorded by Korean envoys who traveled to China during the Koryŏ and Chosŏn dynasties from the 12th century to the 19th century. Users can browse travel records by time period, king, and author. It is multi-languages searchable full-text including classical Korean and Chinese.

The C.V. Starr East Asian Library at Columbia University has made four New Chinese archival collections available. It includes:

Wu Dizhou papers 吴荻舟档案

Chin-Tang Lo papers 羅錦堂档案

Myron L. Cohen papers

Collection of Correspondences between Chen Yande and Li Yaying 陈衍德与李亚英往来通信

To access these collections, one needs to make an in-person appointment via Columbia’s Rare Book and Manuscript Library.

Primary Sources on Taiwan is a living project that contains a growing selection of primary historical sources in English translation for the study of Taiwan, covering the period from Japanese colonial rule (1895-1945) to the present. Compiled by Wayne Soon and Evan Dawley, with translations by various contributors. The website is now hosted by UMN.

The North Korean Comic Books Database is a spreadsheet created by Jacco Zwetsloot, who was a student at Leiden University and has been researching and cataloguing North Korean comic books since 2012. This comprehensive database is to assist Korean studies librarians and interested researchers in identifying and understanding the scope of the North Korean comic books.

Link to the database.

If you have any questions or would like to discuss further, please feel free to contact Jacco Zwetsloot at [email protected].

The University Libraries have just purchased a documentary film, "Carving the divine : Buddhist sculptors of Japan," about the Buddhist woodcarving tradition of Būshi and the practitioners struggling to preserve its legacy in a rapidly changing Japan.

The film is available in 2 versions: a 98-minute full-length and a 58-minute cut version. Both versions are in Japanese with English subtitles.

Stanford University has just announced the the launch of the online bibliography "The Japanese-occupied China Collection." This site provides detailed information about—and links to—an extensive collection of primary source materials, including publications primarily in the Chinese language and archival documents from the period of the Japanese occupation in China (1932–1945), now housed at Stanford University—primarily within the East Asia Library and the Hoover Institution.

As part of EastView's 2024 & 2025 Global Press Archives (GPA) Area Studies Initiative Offers, two East Asian Newspapers are made open access to the public. (UMN contributed!)

Direct link to the Independence Evening Post (自立晚報).

Library catalog page of Independence Evening Post (自立晚報).

Direct link to Chōya Shinbun (朝野新聞).

Library catalog page of Chōya Shinbun (朝野新聞).

Direct link to J-DAC: History of Japan's Trade and Industry Policy Online 通産政策史資料.

Library catalog page of J-DAC: History of Japan's Trade and Industry Policy Online 通産政策史資料.

J-DAC provides a multidisciplinary archival platform for researchers in the humanities and social sciences through the collection and consolidation of various cultural and historical records of Japan. We have purchased some sub-collections under the History of Japan's Trade and Industry Policy Online 通産政策史資料. For detalied list of titles available, please refer to the blog or the catalog page.

AM (previously named Adam Matthew) has published an East Asian LibGuide to AM databases exploring East Asian history, politics, and culture. It's a good place to navigate the AM East Asian collection. However, the links in the guide will not directly grant you access to the databases UMN has subscribed to. You can either search the titles of each collection in the Libraries search or use the Proxy bookmarklet to reload the page.