East Asia Collection
The East Asia Collection is a separate, open-access sequence of materials for the teaching of Asian studies. It is located on Level 4 of the Library.
Scope and Content
(a) The collection includes materials in Chinese and Japanese, with a small number of titles in Mongolian, Manchu, Tibetan, Korean and Thai.
(b) Reference works in these languages are included, as are bilingual dictionaries of East Asian and western languages. Some works may have duplicate copies located in the main Reference Collection (Level 2).
(c) Translations into languages other than those in (a) are not located in the East Asia Collection, but on the open shelves or in other locations as appropriate.
(d) Materials acquired for other purposes, e.g. scientific research, are excluded from this location.
(e) A decision could be made later to include other South-East Asian languages if required by the University's teaching program.
(f) Indian languages, Malayo-Polynesian, Turkic and Paleo-Siberian are excluded.
(g) Vernacular materials which are within the scope of other special collections (e.g. maps; curriculum materials) are located in those other collections.
Romanisation
Works in Chinese:
Pinyin romanisation is used in all fields except subject headings. This is on account of the Library of Congress standard having been the Wade-Giles romanisation scheme. Recently the Library of Congress has decided to convert all of its Chinese bibliographic records to Pinyin, including name, topical and geographic subject headings. This is expected to take some considerable time before it is completed. The project will also include those names which were given to places by colonising nations.
Works in Japanese:
The modified Hepburn system of romanisation of Japanese is used. (See Library of Congress Cataloging Service Bulletin, no. 20 / Spring 1983).