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Posted by: Joshua Kueh
The Asian Division is now accepting applications for its Florence Tan Moeson Fellowship, which supports short-term research visits to the Asian Reading Room at the Library of Congress. This year's application deadline is midnight Sunday, January 12, 2025.
Posted in: Announcements, Asian Division, East Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, Uncategorized
Posted by: Cameron Penwell
(The following is a collaborative post with contributions from Elli Kim, Korean Reference Librarian; Joshua Kueh, Southeast Asian Reference Librarian; Cameron Penwell, Japanese Reference Librarian; and Ryan Wolfson-Ford, Southeast Asian Reference Librarian) With Halloween now upon us, we thought it would be interesting to learn more about ghosts, ghouls, and things that go bump in …
Posted in: Asian Division, East Asia, Southeast Asia
Posted by: Ryan Wolfson-Ford
“World War II Records from Burma” is a diverse and unique grouping of documentary materials in the Southeast Asian Rare Book Collection. This post highlights documents from the collection concerning the Indian Independence League and Indian National Army, two Indian diaspora organizations that emerged prior to and during World War II.
Posted in: Asian Division, Southeast Asia
Posted by: Joshua Kueh
Asian Division 2024 Junior Fellow Akhila Gunturu shares her experience inventorying serials on microfiche in the South Asian Collection. The post highlights the collection’s various uses through an analysis of the advertisements in the Telugu periodical Iṇḍiyā Tuḍē: Vārṣika Sāhitya Sañcika (India Today: Annual Literary Issue).
Posted in: Asian Division, Junior Fellows, South Asia
Posted by: Joshua Kueh
This post features answers to frequently asked questions about the Southeast Asian collections at the Library of Congress provided by the Library’s Southeast Asian reference librarians. Librarians touch on types of Southeast Asian materials available, who uses the collections, how the Library acquires its holdings, and how to access them.
Posted in: Asian Division, Southeast Asia, Uncategorized
Posted by: Ryan Wolfson-Ford
(The following is a post by Charlotte Giles, South Asia reference librarian, Asian Division.) Valuable pieces of ephemera trace shifts in ideas, issues of importance, and the diversity of views in society at the time of their distribution. Because these materials are widely distributed to the public, they often create a meaningful and lasting snapshot …
Posted in: Asian Division, South Asia
Posted by: Ryan Wolfson-Ford
Suzanne Karpelès lived a fascinating life of a scholar of Pali, Khmer, Thai, Tibetan, and Sanskrit, at a time when being an Indologist was a male dominated field, making a major impact on academic knowledge of Cambodian Buddhism, among other subjects. Her personal library is full of wonderful treasures from the early days of Western printing of Cambodian Buddhist works and rare Khmer manuscripts like the Reamker, the Cambodian version of the epic Hindu tale, the Ramayana. One can still access her unique library at the Library of Congress where it has found a home with the Southeast Asian Rare Book Collection in the Asian Reading Room.
Posted in: Asian Division, Southeast Asia
Posted by: Joshua Kueh
With 900 freely accessible online items at launch, the South Asian Digital Collection features primary sources on a variety of subjects. This blog looks at the new collection’s items related to colonialism in South Asia, vernacular literature, religion and philosophy, grammar and linguistics, the Rebellion of 1857, and travel accounts by European and American authors.
Posted in: Asian Division, Digital Content, South Asia
Posted by: Cameron Penwell
(The following post is by Cameron Penwell, Japanese Reference Specialist, Asian Division.) On March 31, 1854, the signing of the US-Japan Treaty of Peace and Amity marked the beginning of official relations between the United States and Japan. In connection with the 170th anniversary of this historical event, the Library of Congress has launched a …
Posted in: Asian Division, East Asia