Starr News

Fall 2002

After a hiatus of well over a year our newsletter is back once again to inform you of developments in the Starr Library. For more detailed information about the library, and up-to-the-minute Starr news, we would like to encourage you to keep track of our homepage at: 

Challenge Grant Awarded

The C. V. Starr East Asian Library at Columbia University has been awarded a $1.5 million challenge grant from the Starr Foundation. The three-year challenge grant will be used to support additions to the Korean and Tibetan collections, the digitization of selected collections, and improvements to the Library's infrastructure. The library, founded in 1902, celebrates its centennial this year by hosting a symposium and reception in the spring.

The East Asian Library at Columbia was named the C. V. Starr Library in 1983, after a transforming renovation, funded primarily by the Starr Foundation, which substantially increased the Library's shelf space, improved its climate control, furnishings, storage and reading areas. The million-dollar donation was followed by an endowment of $3 million, to continue the acquisition work of the library, preserve the library's excellent holdings, and constantly improve its technology. Additional support from the Starr Foundation -- as well as from new donors we will discover over the next three years -- will enable us to expand our scope while maintaining a leadership position among East Asian Libraries.

The Starr Foundation was established in 1955 by Cornelius Vander Starr, an insurance entrepreneur who founded the American International family of insurance and financial services companies, now known as American International Group, Inc. (NYSE:AIG). Mr. Starr, a pioneer of globalization, set up his first insurance venture in Shanghai in 1919, and retained an interest in Asia all his life. He died in 1968 at the age of 76, leaving his estate to the Foundation.

Mitsui USA Gift

The Mitsui USA Foundation donated its Nihon no kataribe ("Story-Teller of Japan") Cultural CD Series, via the Center on Japanese Business and Economy, to "Columbia University Japanese Language and Culture Students." Starr is housing it for your use. It is a set of a dozen CDs containing 24 lectures by eminent Japanese scholars, artisans, and other specialists on Japanese arts, crafts, history, customs. The original lectures were delivered to a group of "lifetime learners" formed from Mitsui company retirees. They decided the collection of lectures was too good to keep to themselves, so they had it published for the foundation to give to institutions teaching Japanese language and culture. They will be available to be borrowed soon.

Staff Issues

On the staffing front we have both good and bad news to report.

The good news is that Hideyuki Morimoto, formerly of U.C. Berkeley and NYU, started working in Starr on September 29 as our new Japanese cataloger. Mr. Morimoto is known in the profession as the best Japanese cataloger in North America, so it is with great exitement that we welcome him aboard. Also, before the end of the year, we expect to welcome Hee-Sook Shin, presently of Ohio State University, as our new Korean Studies Librarian.

The bad news is that the Chinese Studies Librarian and Tibetan Studies Librarian positions remain to be filled, but we are actively seeking qualified candidates. We will, of course, do everything in our power to provide adequate service, despite the staff shortage, but hope that you will show some understanding for any inconvenience the current situation might cause.

New Electronic Services

Computer reconfiguration:   Over the summer a number of activities have taken place in the library to improve access to electronic resources. One of these activities involved a complete reconfiguration of the area across the library entrance / exit. The remainder of our card catalogs have been consolidated into the drawers behind the large Japanese cabinet. This allowed for expanding the number of LibraryWeb terminals and other public access computers, which are now arranged in a more accessible fashion. Reference material on the shelves in the back of this area are again easy to reach, while sufficient space remains for the eventual addition of language-specific stand-alone terminals for Chinese and Korean databases on CD-ROM. Two stand-alone terminals for Japanese CD-ROM databases are already in place.

Wireless service:   Also over the summer, the entire library was wired to accommodate wireless access to all Columbia web services, including LWeb. If you have a special PC card installed in your portable computer, you can access the network without the need for network cables and jacks. You can find more information about wireless services on the AcIS website at:

Nichigai enhancements:   The presentation of information in Nichigai's periodical database MAGAZINEPLUS was enhanced to offer links to Starr's holdings of Japanese journals cited in the database search results. It works like this: when you search the database and get a search result, journals held at Starr will show a tag "Columbia Univ. Holdings" which you can click to connect to the corresponding CLIO record containing our local holdings information. The database can be found at:

New Chinese Databases Online:   Two new databases are available for the use of Columbia University faculty, students, and staff. The Chinese Academic Journals (CAJ) is a full-text database, with electronic versions of Chinese academic periodicals from 1994 to the present. Columbia has subscribed to three major areas: literature/history/philosophy; economics/politics/law; and education/social science. The interface is available in both Chinese and English. (This database is also known as Chinese Journal Network [CJN].) You will have to download some software to properly display your results. The database is available at:

The other is the Siku Quanshu (Wenyuange Edition), compiled in 1773-1782, which contains 3,460 works, including history, astronomy, geography, politics, economics, and more. The full-text database of all 36,000 volumes is fully searchable. Columbia users must, however, sign on to the database to use it. The user name is skqscolumbia1 and the password is SkQs-ColumBia1 (note: it is case-sensitive, and the last digit in both cases is the number one, not the letter l). The database is available at:

Please let us know about your experiences using these new resources.

New BorrowDirect partners:   As of September 2002, BorrowDirect, the rapid book request and delivery service provided cooperatively by Columbia University, University of Pennsylvania, and Yale University, has been expanded with four new partners of particular interest and importance for East Asian Studies -- Princeton University, Cornell University, Brown University and Dartmouth College -- further enriching this service and the volume of readily available collections for the member institutions' library patrons. More information about BorrowDirect can be found at:

Moves and Shifts

As we keep adding new material to our collection, space continues to be a problem in our stacks. We therefore continue to select and process material to be moved to the Libraries' new offsite storage facility ReCAP. This means that you will continue to see these materials in various areas in the stacks, in particular in and near the microform corridor on the 100-level. These materials are, for the most part, shelved on big red booktrucks. Please do not handle these materials, as it would interfere with the processing. If you need an item that is awaiting transit to offsite, please ask for help at the circulation desk.

After the renovation of the building foundations, we lost a substantial amount of shelf space in the area where the folio-sized materials with Library of Congress call numbers used to be housed. These materials had been temporarily shelved in our rare book reading room, where they presently still remain. We are currently in the process of reconfiguring a number of stack areas so that we will be able to move these folios. The LC folios will be shelved together in the skylight room on the 100 level, and we will reclaim the rare book reading room for its original function. The Japanese folios with Nippon Decimal call numbers have been moved to the south wall of room 108, and dissertations have been moved to the 250 level, immediately beyond the copying area.

Exhibitions

Faculty writing sampler:   On display in our main reading room are publications by faculty members involved in East Asia related teaching and research. Although we would have liked to represent every single faculty member, the limited space in these four small display cases unfortunately limited us to offering a mere selection. To avoid removing needed literature from reserve and circulation access, as far as possible only duplicate copies were included. In addition several faculty members and librarians also kindly lent personal copies for the display.

Other displays:   At present a sampling of Starr's non-print collection is still on view in the rare book reading room, including calligraphy accessories and seals, as well as bronze artifacts. A new display for the Kress room is in the works and will be announced as soon as it is ready to be viewed; stay tuned!

Primary Public Service Contacts:

Library Director: Amy V. Heinrich. 305M Kent. (212) 854-1508. heinrich@columbia.edu 

Access Services: Kenneth Harlin. 319M Kent. (212) 854-4318. harlin@columbia.edu 

East Asian Studies: Ria Koopmans-de Bruijn. 310 Kent. (212) 854-1505. rkb7@columbia.edu 

Chinese Studies: Position currently open; ask at the reference or circulation desk for assistance.

Japanese Studies: Mihoko Miki. 308M Kent. (212) 854-1506. miki@columbia.edu 

Korean Studies: Ask at the reference or circulation desk for assistance.

Tibetan Studies: Position currently open; ask at the reference or circulation desk for assistance.