Video Collection
Chinese and Japanese feature films and documentaries on China and Japan are among the holdings in our growing video collection. Some videos may be found in the Foreign Language Resource Center and Oldenborg Center on the Pomona College campus, while others are part of the collection of the Honnold-Mudd Library. To view our holdings, turn to the online catalog and type in China or Japan in the "Country" box to conduct a search.
Asian Studies Collection
The Asian Studies Collection office is located on the first floor of the Honnold building. Office hours are 1 to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday. Reference assistance and check-out services are available during office hours. Reference assistance at other times may be available by appointment. The department has developed from the 1930s to achieve its present holdings of more than 81,000 volumes. It is one of the most outstanding Chinese and Japanese collections of its size in the United States. In fact, the holdings are unique among West Coast academic collections.
Staff
Head, Asian Library
Xiuying Zou
Website
Asian Studies Department, The Libraries of The Claremont Colleges
The Japanese Collection
The Japanese collection consists of basic reference books, major literary works, histories, and biographical materials. The Western language collection on the Far East includes some 7,500 volumes of scholarly journals, statistical reports, reference books, and monographs.
The Asian Studies Collection
The Asian Studies Collection is enriched by three rare items. The first is a book on medical science, Su Wen Shin Yun Ch'i Lun Ao, in two volumes with the preface date 1099 and reprinted during the Ming dynasty. The second is an incomplete set of Chinese classics, Ch'un Ch'iu Shu Tz'u, and Ch'un Ch'iu Shih Shuo, also a Ming edition. The third is a manuscript set of the "Four Classics" (Ssu shu t'u shou) and amounts to nineteen stitched volumes bound in yellow silk covers and protected by four yellow covered cases. This handwritten copy is accompanied by illustrations drawn by hand and is the only copy in the United States and possibly the world. It was written by imperial order of the Ch'ing emperor Kuang-Hsu toward the end of his reign (1904-06), and took two years to produce two copies. One was submitted to the throne, the other is here.
Major acquisitions include the purchase in 1969 of the library of the late Richard G. Irwin, former Head of the East Asiatic Library at the University of California, Berkeley. The library is distinguished by its holdings in the field of Chinese and Japanese literature, literary criticism and bibliography. Another acquisition, the personal library of the historian P.K. Yu, Director of the Center for Chinese Research, is distinguished by its holdings in the fields of modern history and historical criticism. Professor S. Y. Ch'en's library of Chinese and Japanese materials was given to Honnold Library for the Asian Studies Collection. Professor Ch'en was chiefly instrumental in establishing the Asian Studies Program at Pomona College. A major gift from Japanese art collector and appraiser Tomoo Ogita was presented to the collection upon his death in 1984. This gift contains more than 1,000 art monographs and nearly twenty-five serial titles in the Chinese, Japanese, and English languages, and of limited availability in the past and not available at all at the present time. Another addition of sixty volumes of Chinese Communist publications on art and art criticisms was donated by Joe E. McCaffree who collected the books in Hong Kong before the Cultural Revolution (1966 - 1970).
The Claremont Graduate School has also been instrumental in enlarging the Collection. The Oral History Program has forwarded to the department many archival materials, documents, diaries, Bibles and artifacts from retired Chinese missionaries in Claremont and Los Angeles. A portion of the Blaisdell Institute's special collection in Japanese on East Asian religion and intellectual history has been integrated into the Asian Studies Collection.
The California College in China Collection consists of about five hundred titles of works in history, literature and local gazetteers. They are original editions of the Ming and Ch'ing dynasties and the early 19th century. There are also fifty Chinese serial titles in original editions. Housed in the Special Collections Department is another notable set of books, calligraphy and rubbings: the Frederick McCormick Korean Collection, donated to Pomona College. Rare Korean Books printed with movable-type form an important part of this collection of Chinese classics, historical studies, the humanities and sciences, literary anthologies, and rubbings of tomb memorials.
Pacific Basin Institute
The original base of the Archive was the large and diverse collection of production and archival footage, video and documentary material gathered in support of The Pacific Century, PBI's award-winning ten-hour television documentary series. Since its transfer to Pomona College, the Archive's holdings have been greatly expanded to include a library of over 3,000 videotapes and DVDs dealing with every aspect of the Asia/Pacific region - art, culture, economics, history and religion - and touching almost every academic discipline.
Historical Footage
PBI's historical footage is assembled from thirteen countries with materials ranging from Japan's colonization of Manchuria to the movement for democracy in South Korea to recently declassified U.S. Department of Energy videos on atomic weapons testing programs.
Production Footage
PBI's production footage was shot on location throughout Asia from 1988 to 2001. Samples include Mongolian cavalry troops charging in full 13th century battle armor along the steppes; the birthday celebrations of Confucius in Qufu, China; Wayang Kulit performers in Yogyakarta and numerous city scenes of Tokyo, Shanghai, Beijing, Taipei, Seoul, Manila, etc.
Documentaries
Ranging from classics like Frank Capra's WWII “Know Your Enemy Japan,” to the U.S. Department of Defense's “Know Your Enemy the Vietcong,” to a recent insider's view of North Korea. There is also a 12 volume series of award-winning student documentaries from the International Documentary Association.
Feature Films
Films from throughout Asia, from old classics like “Song of China” (1936) to recent releases by filmmakers in Japan, Korea, China, Taiwan, Cambodia, Vietnam, and India.
Interviews
PBI's interviews consist of a very valuable collection of unique tapes: sample subjects include Kim Dae Jung, Kiichi Miyazawa, Vo Nguyen Giap, Dai Qing, Yasuhiro Nakasone, Akira Kurosawa, Charles Kades, Beate Gordon and Lee Kuan Yew. The Archive also has an on-going oral history, digital video interview project on the War Experience which currently focuses on the lives of former U.S. Navy Japanese Language Officers and teachers in WWII.