COLUMBIA   LIBRARY   COLUMNS

The Spring 1996 Issue   i   Michael Stoller, Editor
 

L
 

Ln keeping with Library Columns' desire
to highlight the breadth and depth of all the collections of Columbia
Libraries, I have asked C. V. Starr East Asian Library Director Amy V.
Heinrich to guest-edit this issue devoted to the extraordinary resources of
that library and the research it inspires. The fruits of her efforts are ap¬
parent in the pages that follow. Henry D. Smith provides a fascinating ac-
cotint of nineteenth-century Japanese gokan novels, a genre of wood-block
literature interweaving texts and illustrations, which presaged the modern
Japanese love of comic books. Robert Hymes acquaints us with Chinese
local histories, a body of literature where the needs of government bu¬
reaucrats and the pride of the gentry combined to describe the fabric of
local life in China with extraordinary detail. Our guest editor discusses
Starr Library's Abe Kobo Collection and helps us to grasp die subde and il¬
lusive brilliance of this twendeth-century Japanese novelist, playwright,
and poet.* Finally Heinrich and Starr Library's Amy Hai Kyung Lee present
an overview of Columbia's Korean rare book holdings and in particular
Starr's Y\ Song-ui Collection, which displays Korea's unique place in the
history of Asian printing. And of course "Our Growing Collections"
testifies to the continued development of ('olumbia's library resources and
to the exceptional generosity of oiu' donors, who make that growth
possible.

* All East Asian names in the articles are presented in the traditional manner, with surname first.