OUR  GROWING   COLLECTIONS
 

Thk (;.V. Starr E.ast Asi.-w Library

Cooperative acquisition: Starr Library has
entered into a cooperative arrangement with
the Humanities Division of New York
University's Bobst Library. Aided by an eight)'
percent subsidy Starr has been able to order
several expensive sets that it otherwise would
not have been able to afford. The first of these
sets has recently arrived in the Library. It is the
Hong Kong Annual Administration Reports
1841-1941 (London: Archive Editions, 1996).
This is a six-volume set containing facsimile
reprints of administration and related
reports, including handwritten ones, covering
the first 100 years of British rule in Hong
Kong. Some of these reports were never
published before. The editorial introduction
by Robert L. Jarman includes archival refer¬
ences for each document.

Keenc gift: The discovery of a copy of Oku no
Hosomichi in Matsuo Basho's own hand was
made public in Japan this past November. The
importance of the text is enormous, and an
annotated edition—soon to be acquired—has
become a bestseller in Japan. Professor
Donald Keene has donated a limited edition
facsimile edition, likely to be the only such
copy available in the United States. It is avail¬
able for scholars and students in Special
Collections.
 

Sheng Yen gift: The Venerable Master Sheng
Yen, lineage holder of both the Ts'ao-tung
(Soto) and Lin-chi (Rinzai) traditions of
Ch'an (Zen) Buddhism, and a world authority
on Ch'an, has donated a set of his complete
scholarly works on the Ch'an Buddhist scrip¬
tures in more than forty volumes to the Starr
Library. Master Sheng Yen is abbot of the
Nung Ch'an Monastery and president of the
Chung-Hwa Institute of Buddhist Studies and
Dharma Drum Mountain Buddhist
Foundation in Taiwan. He and Fran LaFleur
(of the Starr Library) met when they both
appeared as guests on a talk show on Taiwan
television (TTV) aired last June. The show was
moderated by Shih Shu-chiing, a contempo¬
rary writer of fiction and drama in Taiwan
(many of whose works are available in Starr)
and the hour-long discussion focused on
contrasting attitudes toward life, death, and
religious practice in the Buddhist andjudeo-
Christian traditions.

Rark Book
A\D Maxiscript Library

Baker gift: During the Second World War,
faculty from the Columbia University School
of Journalism traveled to China to instruct
young journalists there in the techniques of
writing and reporting the news. Under the
instruction of Richard Baker, longtime asso-