The Korean Collection in the Harvard-Yenching Library

Transcription

1 Journal of East Asian Libraries Volume 1980 Number 63 Article The Korean Collection in the Harvard-Yenching Library Sungha Kim Follow this and additional works at: BYU ScholarsArchive Citation Kim, Sungha (1980) "The Korean Collection in the Harvard-Yenching Library," Journal of East Asian Libraries: Vol. 1980: No. 63, Article 7. Available at: This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the All Journals at BYU ScholarsArchive. It has been accepted for inclusion in Journal of East Asian Libraries by an authorized administrator of BYU ScholarsArchive. For more information, please contact scholarsarchive@byu.edu.

2 THE KOREAN COLLECTION IN THE HARVARD-YENCHING LIBRARY Sungha Kim The Harvard-Yenching Library The Korean collection of the Harvard-Yenching Library among the latest additions to that library was established in 1951, by which time the Chinese and the Japanese collections had grown to some 189,000 and 29,000 volumes, respectively. At present the Korean collection, although small in comparison with the major university and government libraries in Korea, is considered by many scholars to be on a par with the major collections in Korea in quality, if not in quantity. The Korean collection in this library was almost thirty years in the making. As we all know, collection building cannot be an overnight accomplishment. It requires time, patience, understanding, the cooperative efforts of many persons, and, above all, funding. For many years, the existence of Korea had been all but ignored in the United States, and Korean studies likewise had been neglected. The attention of many was drawn to the importance of Korea's place in global politics by the postworld War II struggle between the Communist and Free Worlds, which divided Korea into two, and by the Korean War. Besides Korea's geographical location as a bridge between China and Japan, an understanding of Korean culture is essential for scholars whose area of research is East Asia. I will not here go into the significance of Korean culture, which played an intermediary role between China and Japan throughout Korean history. It was natural that some universities in this country which offered East Asian studies should add Korea to their curricula in the early 1950's. Harvard University was among the first which established a program of Korean studies. Instruction in this crucial area began in 1952, and this library had to supply the materials necessary for research. The Harvard-Yenching Institute was solely responsible for subsidizing the library'8 expenses until 1965, and the Institute generously allocated the amount needed for Korean acquisitions from the beginning. However, the Korean War and the ensuing post-war social and cultural turmoils prevented the library from maintaining the normal channels of book purchasing. As one can see from the acquisitions statistics, the rate of growth was very slow in the 1950's. The Korean collection surpassed the 10,000-volume mark only in 1963, after my 1962 trip to Korea and Japan to purchase a substantial number of books from both countries. With regard to book purchasing, there were then many materials available at reasonable prices. There were not many libraries or institutions capable of acquiring and absorbing the quantity of books available in the Korean book market in the 1950's or even in the early 1960's. However, this picture has changed drastically since the second half of the 1960's. Not only have books become scarce, but prices have become extraordinarily high. We were fortunate, in a sense, that we began collecting Korean materials earlier than did others, and thus were able to obtain a number of valuable materials during that period. In this regard, we must mention the efforts

3 of Prof. Young-gyu Minn, former librarian of Yonsei University Library, and a visiting scholar of the Harvard-Yenching Institute in 1954/55. Prof. Minn supplied us with some 4,000 volumes of traditional materials from 1957 to Without his dedicated service, our splendid collection of traditional materials would not be what it is now. In addition to the support given for the development of the Korean collection in its formative years by the Harvard-Yenching Institute, the contribution of the Harvard College Library, of which the Harvard-Yenching Library became a part in 1976, and the assistance of the Korean Studies Committee of Harvard University have been equally significant over the years. The Korean collection in this library contained, as of June 30, 1980, some 43,000 volumes of monographs, 1,400 periodical titles, and files of 48 newspapers. In addition, the collection also had 1,400 titles of positive and 700 titles of master negative microfilms. As revealed in the shelf-list statistics, the areas of strength of the Korean collection follow the general patterns of the library's older companions, the Chinese and the Japanese collections, with language and literature, social sciences, and history taking the lead. The library's primary function is to collect and process materials in the fields of the humanities and social sciences. In the technical, scientific, and medical fields, the scope is limited to reference, bibliography, and relevant source materials. However, other materials on these subjects, which have been determined to be of importance for historical and research purposes, have not been excluded from the library's acquisitions. Approximately three-quarters of the collection consists of 20th-century publications. The remaining one-quarter are pre-1900 materials. Of the materials published since 1945, some 1,700 titles are from North Korea, about 7.7 percent of the total collection. This poor showing is a result of the small number of books and periodicals being published in North Korea, and does not reflect the library's acquisitions policy. As mentioned above, one of the largest segments of our Korean collection is the large number of works on Korean literature and language. The library contains some 4,300 titles of Korean belles-lettres of modern times, including not only major repertoires of prose and poetry, but also collected poems and poems of Individual writers. A particularly striking feature of the Korean collection is its impressive number of munjip (collected literary writings of individuals). These are works in classical Chinese, which was employed by Korean scholars until the end of the 19th century. This library contains almost 2,500 titles of this type, some printed as early as the 13th century. The contemporary language collection, ranging from beginners' textbooks for use in primary schools to highly specialized studies of Korean grammar, accounts for 670 titles. The library'8 large number of Korean genealogies and government examination rosters is a primary source of information for the social historian. These collections have benefited from the interest of Edward W. Wagner, Professor

4 of Korean Studies at Harvard University. His detailed analysis of the Yi dynasty elite, as represented by some 14,600 successful candidates in the highest civil service examinations during that dynasty, was based on this collection. The library has 586 of these genealogies in book form, and more than 1,000 additional genealogies on microfilm. In addition to the genealogy collection, the library has 139 rosters of candidates for the civil service examinations. One factor which makes the library an exceptional center for Korean studies is its outstanding collection of Korean local gazetteers. The government officials of the late Yi dynasty gathered and published, individually or collectively, many local records known as chibangji litjfwo (descriptions of local areas sometimes referred to as "local histories" or "gazetteers"). These local records are an inexhaustible source of information, ranging from local history to lists of an area's outstanding products, from famous shrines and temples to names of important families who resided in the area. Together with modern statistical yearbooks of the provinces, local counties, and cities, this library holds some 750 titles of these local records, some in printed form and some on microfilm. The history collection Includes many examples of primary sources, both new and older, original printings as well as reprints. The Tongguk t'onggam jjl (Annals of Korea), originally compiled in 1484 covers the centuries from ancient times to the end of the KoryB period in 1392 (this library has an edition which was printed around 1670 in 23 volumes). For the succeeding Yi dynasty (1392-^910), we have the Yilo sillok, also known as Chosen Wangjo sillok Ifl^'ti* L (Veritable Records of the Yi Dynasty), the Ilsongnotc ^^L} (Court Diaries), SungjongwOn ilgi fc*)lfx,tf %t* < t n e D i a *y o f the Office of the Royal Secretariat), and others. Korea's relations with China and Japan, up to the laoe"19th century, are chronicled in Tongmun hwigo \f\ X^fr 1y<^ * a collection of documents relating to cultural, commercial, and diplomatic intercourse. There is also an abundance of materials covering the late years of the Yi dynasty, from 1864 to With the rapid development of the Korean economy in the 1970's, many economic and industrial organizations were established in various places in South Korea. A parallel development was the founding of economic institutions in the capital city, resulting in a significant rise In the number of publications on economics, finance, and development. The library's collection of 1,400 titles of Korean serials is second to none. The importance of the serial collection in a research library need not be reiterated. We are giving our utmost attention to acquiring all major journals and periodicals in areas collected by the library. It is not an easy task to fill in gaps and missing volumes, but we are making every effort to complete serial runs, including Xeroxing or microfilming when original copies are not available. The Korean Section's rare book collection contains 180 titles of fine manuscripts, specimens of early Korean printing, and several very early printings. The earliest printed book in the rare book collection is the second volume of

5 the two-volume set of Sjfaa Sonsaeng chip 3& ^ ^* %. $ the collected writings of Master Im Ch'un (fl. 1170). This is a fine wood block edition published in Pyongyang % )fll in Some 20 specimens of Korean movable type printing were given by Prof. Young-gyu Minn when he visited here in 1954; they date from 1403 to the late 19th century. The library's copy of Kuunmong -)\/% 3, a novel by Kim Man-jung %jf^l ( ), was identified by Prof. Chung Kyu-bok J %h of Korea University as the oldest manuscript copy existing of that work. In 1963 the library acquired the surviving 65 volumes of the 70-volume Han'gogwan oesa % JL» a collection of anecdotes, historical fiction, and essays collected afid" compiled by Kim Yo fjfc (fl. 1800); five of the 70 volumes of this set had been lost during the Korean War. This set be came the more important because another collection which was known as Kwangsa j% ^, by the same compiler, in 200 volumes, had been lost during the earthquake in the Tokyo area in tffc y s The library has published three volumes of its Korean catalogue. The first volume was a hand-copied litho-printed edition, printed in Cambridge in It included some 3,160 titles in 6,570 volumes. The second volume, which included works catalogued by the end of 1964, was published in Seoul in 1966 and listed some 3,400 additional titles in 8,000 volumes. It also included cumulative author and title indexes, covering all works listed in both the first and second volumes. These indexes are arranged by the Korean hangtil sequence, but each name and book title is given also in the McCune-Reischauer romanization. The third volume, which has just been published, covers items obtained and processed by the Korean Section from 1966 to 1976, and includes some 11,730 titles in 19,700 volumes. The serial section of this third volume is a cumulative list of the titles given in the first and second volumes and those added since the publication of volume II. This section totals some 1,400 titles. North Korean materials were excluded from the third volume and will be published as a supplement at a later date. We are planning ultimately to list all North Korean materials in one volume, including items which appeared in the first and second volumes. We think that this would be most useful in meeting the needs of researchers in identifying North Korean publications. The 43,000-plus volumes of the Korean collection in this library represent about 7 percent of the library's total holdings; its total volume ratio to the Chinese collection is 1 to 7.5, and to the Japanese collection, about 1 to 3.5. In recent years, the Korean collection has added an average of 2,000 volumes per year, accounting for over 15 percent of the library's total annual Increase. The Korean collection of the Harvard-Yenching Library is second in size only to that of the Library of Congress, but it is largest among the university libraries in the Western world. While the Library of Congress emphasizes contemporary materials, the Harvard-Yenching Library stresses not only con temporary publications, but traditional materials as well, in an effort to balance the collection between old and new research materials

6 Status of the Korean Collection As of June 30, 1980 Based on the Shelf List in the Harvard-Yenching Library Subjects Call Numbers Titl< Confucian Classics Philosophy Ethics Religion (General) Buddhism Other Religions (incl. Christianity) Archaeology St Ethnology Biography (General) Korean Genealogy Korean Biography ( includes Korean Government Examination Rosters of 139! History 4 Geography China k Japan Korean History ,210 Korean Geography Other Countries Social Sciences (General) Statistics Sociology Communi sm Economics ,806 Politics & Law ,305 Education Language & Literature Other than Korean Korean Language Korean Literature ,293 Korean Literature in Chinese ,469 Fine & Recreative Arts Science Agriculture & Home Economics Technology 4 Engineering Serials, Periodicals, etc (General) Bibliography Newspapers

7 ACQUISITIONS STATISTICS Korean Section Harvard-Yenching Library Year Titles Voliw , , , , ,176 2, ,307 3, , , , ,032 1, , ,015 l,73p , ,074 1, , ,238 2, ,258 1, ,490 2, ,240 2, ,297 2, ,297 2,002 Total Extent of Titles Volumes (As of June 30 of the respective year! , , ,794 1,062 2,028 1,259 2,779 1,697 3,907 2,430 5,317 2,961 6,440 3,649 8,253 4,825 10,270 6,132 13,284 6,708 14,704 7,636 16,399 8,399 17,626 9,431 19,343 10,313 20,921 11,328 22,651 12,058 24,209 13,132 26,845 13,952 28,493 15,190 30,561 16,448 32,525 17,938 35,150 19,174 37,163 20,471 39,326 21,768 41,

8 We feel that we have thus far succeeded In building up a basic collection for the pursuance of Korean studies here at Harvard University. Our task is to maintain our reputation while striving for further development. *** THE WILLIAM ELLIOT GRIFFIS COLLECTION OF OLD AND RARE JAPANESE BOOKS, OLIN LIBRARY, CORNELL UNIVERSITY Alan Wolfe University of Oregon 1. Introduction: The Two Griffis Collections The William Elliot Griffis Collection in the Rutgers University Library, New Brunswick, New Jersey, is by now a well-known and well described collection. The 15,000 items it contains provide an invaluable resource for the study of numerous topics relating to early Meijl Japan, not the least of which is the role of foreigners, including Griffis himself, who were invited to Japan to teach at that time. 2 What has not been as well known, even to specialists, is the existence of another William Elliot Grlffis collection, this one located in the Cornell University libraries in Ithaca, New York.^ The content of this collection is quite different in nature from the Rutgers one, which explains in large measure why it has not as yet received due recognition. The main distinguishing feature of these holdings is that they are almost exclusively Japaneselanguage works collected by or presented to Grlffis, whereas the Rutgers collection, with occasional exceptions, consists of English-language documents, clippings, correspondence, manuscripts, monographs and articles of a more immediate and personalized nature. Moreover, while the latter focuses on contemporary Meijl Japanese politics, society and culture, the former, though numbering a modest 500 titles (1600 items), covers a wide range of old and rare Japanese editions (Including maps) spanning several centuries and subject areas. While the above gives an indication of the fundamentally different character of the two collections, and hence their appeal to presumably distinct groups of specialists, scholars of Grlffis may be interested to learn of the presence of notes and letters among the pages, as well as numerous handwritten notations to be found in the margins of the Cornell volumes. The pencilled notes suggest that Griffis made every effort to know the content of these volumes by having students and friends describe their substance to him. 2. A Brief History While Grlffis' act of loyalty to Rutgers came through his umbilical ties to that University's class of 1869, Cornell owes the existence of its collection