Department of Special and Area Studies Collections,

University of Florida George A. Smathers Libraries:

Asian Studies Collection Development Policy

David Hickey

Asian Studies Bibliographer

Introduction

The Asian Studies Program at University of Florida includes East and South Asian history, East, South and Southeast Asian languages and literature, East, Southeast, South and Central Asian religions, and Asian-related areas within other humanities and social science fields. The Smathers Libraries Asian Studies Collection mission is to serve the research and curricula needs of the Asian Studies faculty, the Asian-related M.A. and Ph.D. students in the separate disciplines, and undergraduates working in various aspects and stages of Asian Studies.

Main Formal Asian Studies Programs Supported by the Smathers Libraries

The Asian Studies Undergraduate Minor:

Two options are available in the Asian Studies Undergraduate Minor. Option 1: 15 semester hours in non-language Asia-related courses. Option 2: Completion of the two-semester sequence of beginning Chinese or Japanese and 12 hours of non-language Asia-related courses. Beginning Vietnamese is also available on this track. Language credits earned at other institutions may be accepted.

The Asian Studies Undergraduate Major:

The B.A. in Asian Studies requires a second-year proficiency in an Asian language and the completion of 24 semester hours of non-language Asia-related courses. The language requirement may be fulfilled by completing the second-year level courses in either Chinese or Japanese. Native speakers with a second-year proficiency in one Asian language may be required to complete coursework in a second language. 18 of the 24 non-language semester hours must be at the 3000 level or above. No more than 12 hours of courses from any one department may be included in the 24 non-language hours.

Honors in Asian studies may be earned by students who have at least a 3.5 GPA in their courses for the major and in their overall junior/senior coursework. For high or highest honors, students write an honors thesis under the guidance of an Asian studies program faculty member.

Undergraduate Majors in Chinese or Japanese Language/Literature

The Department of African and Asian Languages and Literatures offers a major in East Asian Languages and Literatures with concentrations in either Chinese or Japanese. A major needs a minimum of 30 credit hours of 3000 level or above courses. To complete the 30 hours, a student has several options within and outside the department.

Undergraduate Language/Literature Minors:

A minor in East Asian Languages and Literatures is available for students who take 15 credit hours distributed as follows:

Second-year Chinese (6 hours) or Japanese (10 hours),

Any two courses at the 3000 level or above, and

One course outside the department with exclusive reference to either China or Japan (3 hours).

Department of Religion Ph.D. Track in Religions of Asia

The Religions of Asia Ph.D. program will provide students with a broad understanding of the dynamic interactions among Asian Muslims, Buddhists, and Hindus. This track also connects with the Ph.D. program in Religion in the Americas in considering the ways in which Asian traditions have been imported to the West. Four department faculty members anchor this track. Building upon the interdisciplinary resources of the university's Asian Studies Program, recipient of a two million dollar development grant in 2000-2004, students in this specialization will have the opportunity to work with scholars of Asian language, culture and religion across the university's disciplines.

Required courses:
Interpreting Asian Religions, and two of the following three, to be taken in the areas outside the area of the student's specialization: Islam in Asia, Hindu Traditions, and Buddhist Traditions.

Language requirement:
Tested competence in at least one and in many cases two non-English languages selected in consultation with the faculty supervisory committee on the basis of their relevance to the student's research program.

Qualifying examinations:
1) method and theory in the study of religion; 2) and 3) two examinations selected from among (a) Islam in Asia, (b) Religion in South Asia, (c) religion in East Asia; 4) area of specialization within (a), (b), or (c), 5) oral examination.

Scope of Library Support

The East Asian geographic area is defined in the University of Florida academic environment as China and Japan, and to a much lesser extent, Korea, but not the Russian “Far East”. “Greater China” includes all areas in Asia inhabited by ethnic Chinese, even those outside the political entity called China that are epitomized by a continuing Chinese social, cultural and economic concentration. Chinese and Japanese Studies constitute the highest priority collection building areas.

Within the broad swath of library support of the Asian Religion doctoral program, the Asian Studies collection manager is directly responsible for obtaining vernacular East, South and Southeast Asian Religions material deemed essential for this Ph.D.-level curricula and research. Related South and Southeast Asian language instructional support, specifically for Sanskrit, Hindi/Urdu and Vietnamese, fall within this same second- priority status.

Third-level priority will be placed on collecting in Western-language South Asian (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka) literature and language study and other humanities areas. Progress must be made in acquiring more Western-language social science material on South Asia, especially primary sources in colonial history.

Ethnic Asian diaspora materials, in particular Asian-American literature and socio-cultural studies in English from North and South America, will be collected at the same collection priority level as the South and Southeast Asian materials in English.

Responsibilities for acquiring Western-language materials on Central Asia, defined herein as the geographic area between Iraq and China/India, primarily modern Afghanistan, Iran and its historical name, Persia (including the Persian cultural diaspora that highly influenced territories-east via the “Silk Road”), will be shared between the Asian Studies Selector, Religion Selector, History Selector, Director of Special and Area Studies Collections and the Libraries’ overall Director for Collections. The Asian Studies Selector will concentrate, within an overall much lower Central Asian collection building priority, on gathering materials related to Persian influences on China and India.

Materials Collected

Materials Included:

Standard materials are collected: monographs, serials, dissertations and theses, video/DVD material, microforms and electronic resources such as CDs and web-based products. Textbooks are limited to classics in the fields or those that give a particularly outstanding treatment of the subjects. The Asian Studies Bibliographer selectively collects Asian art and artifacts. Rare Asian-related items are mostly the provenance of the Special Collections Rare Books curator, but candidates for inclusion can be recommended by the Asian Studies Bibliographer.

Materials Excluded:

Archival materials, other a/v material such as audio LP or cassette recordings (except for language-instruction material), and ephemera (pamphlets, institutional reports, broadsides, calendars, keepsakes etc.) are not normally collected.

Materials Priorities:

East Asia print/microform/CD material and online resources constitute the highest collection building priority. Reinforcing the Smathers Chinese and Japanese languages and literature holdings will continue, in particular where the acquisitions enrich pre-modern history, Buddhism and other studies. Primary sources in modern Chinese and Japanese history are a major development focus. Since the Asian Studies Program Director’s primary mandate for the library at the outset is to strengthen vernacular holdings in modern Chinese history, roughly defined as the period since the late Qing Dynasty (19th Century), and in Meiji Period Japanese history, emphasis is on acquiring appropriate Chinese and Japanese history research materials in whatever format and continuation characteristics might be available.

Working closely with the Libraries Selector for the Religion Department, the Asian Studies collection manager will acquire the necessary primary and secondary resources, in whatever format and continuation characteristics, to support adequately the Asian Religion doctorate program.

Selection Guidelines Based on Collecting Levels

Asian Studies Collections currently are at Collecting Level 3 overall, that of Instructional Support, with a desired collecting intensity of Level 4, the Research level. To achieve Level 4, given adequate financial and institutional support, the Asian Studies component requires a strategy of collecting not only for present needs, but also for the future in anticipation of new Asian Studies academic endeavors such as M.A programs in Chinese and Japanese Language/Literature, and additional growth in such programs as the Asian Religions Ph.D.

In developing the collection, the following considerations are applicable:

Cost. The Asian Studies Bibliographer will normally not purchase expensive rarities or signed, limited-issue bibliophilic or facsimile editions. Donations from private collectors or the purchase of such by the Rare Books Curator are certainly welcome. There is no price ceiling on material deemed important for enhancing research levels.

Languages. Works in Chinese, Japanese and Western languages—mainly English, French, German, Spanish and Portuguese—comprise the bulk of the collection. Hindi/Urdu, Korean, Sanskrit and Vietnamese materials may also increase over time, but are subject to the availability of university or library staff able to handle the selection and cataloging.

Translations. Translations into Chinese or Japanese from other languages are typically not acquired. Translations into English of Asian language material, in particular creative writing and some non-fiction, are comprehensively acquired within the subject scope of this policy statement.

Dissertations. Unless devoted to a subject area not extensively covered by published literature, American and foreign dissertations on Asia are only acquired selectively or unless specifically requested by a faculty member or graduate student.

Documents. Asian-related international, federal and state documents are collected solely by Documents librarians for storage and use in the Government Documents Collection.

Juvenile Works and Primers. Normally these are not collected. Exceptions may be made to collect these when a well-known author is already represented in the collection with adult-level books. Abridged or juvenile Japanese or Chinese works with a pedagogical focus can be added to the collection. Asian-related children’s book items are mostly the provenance of the Ruth A. Baldwin Children’s Books Collection curator, but candidates for inclusion can be recommended by the Asian Studies Bibliographer.

Electronic Resources. Contingent on cost, the delivery system, the need for additional Chinese or Japanese software, special fonts or printing considerations, type of searching capabilities and the anticipated use by the UF community, these desirable resources will be added as appropriate.

Audio-visual Materials and Maps/Imagery. Asian-related AV materials are typically purchased in response to a faculty member’s reserve requirement or general recommendation, or when they fall within the scope of what would be deemed appropriate for collection enrichment. Asian atlases, maps and GIS material are normally purchased by and for the Maps/Imagery Library. Joint acquisition, in particular of films in collaboration with the Film Selector and of maps in collaboration with the Head of the Maps/Imagery Library, is sometimes done when many are requested and/or needed, or the costs are initially too high for one collection manager to support.

Cataloging, Preservation and Interlibrary Loan Considerations

English and other Western language material should be fully cataloged as part of the general cataloging services mandate. Chinese and Japanese language material will be cataloged by the cataloging team led by the East Asian Cataloger in Cataloging and Metadata Department of the Technology and Support Services Division of Smathers Libraries.

Any older volumes in the Collection deemed worthy of preservation will be digitally preserved or rebound as directed by the Bibliographer or Preservation Officer, in line with Preservation Department guidelines and support. Select Asian Studies-related projects for digitization may be prepared and accomplished, based on financial grant status, and the precepts and logistics dictated by Digital Library Center.

Materials not held in the Asian Studies Collection can be routinely requested via Interlibrary Loan. Large Asian collections in North America can generally provide items that Smathers Libraries could not collect due to insufficient funds, unavailability or peripheral status in relation to known instructional and research needs. Interlibrary Loan can also draw upon foreign sources as well: for Japanese hard-to-find items, Waseda University and/or the Japanese University Network might be used as part of an agreement arranged via the National Coordinating Council on Japanese Resources/ARL Japan Project.

For cataloging and shelving purposes, the LC classification/subject ranges for the major Asian Studies divisions in the Humanities and Social Sciences Library are:

AC 149 – 150	Asian Collections

AS 448 – 457	Asian Academic and Learned Societies

DS 327 – 952	Asian History

PL 401 – 7101	Asian Languages/Literatures

Z 3101 – 3370	Asian Bibliography

September 2009