Echols Collection Policy
The John M. Echols Southeast Asia collection's roots are in Charles Wason's library of western language books on the Chinese which he donated to Cornell in 1919. About that same time the foundation was laid for the Library's huge archive of private papers and documents about Southeast Asia by Jacob Gould Schurman, Cornell's president from 1892-1920, who chaired the Philippine Commission. Schurman's strong feelings about the need to prepare the Philippines for independence established a special relationship for subsequent generations of Cornell educators and researchers who worked in the region, and youths from Southeast Asia who attended Cornell and later rose to prominence in their respective countries.
The concept of Southeast Asia as a region arose during World War II and extended from eastern India and southwestern China to the northern shore of Australia, then along the eastern face of the Philippines. Included in the region are the nations of Brunei, Burma(Mayanmar), Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. While this strategic definition is still used by the region's leaders in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), ancient cultural influences tend to fuse the peoples of the region with both Indic and Sinic traditions. For this reason the inter-shelving of East and South Asian collections with our own in the new Kroch Library is particularly appropriate.
The Southeast Asia Program gained a momentum of its own through a Rockefeller grant in 1951. While secured by faculty in East Asian Studies, Cornell President John Malott's personal commitment to match the grant with internal funds enabled Cornell to establish a distinguisted Southeast Asia Program (SEAP) with powerful library resources. At that time Cornell joined the Farmington Plan, a book acquisitions scheme designed by the federal government to use surplus currencies for vernacular language publications. After the Farmington Plan phased out, the 1958 National Defense Education Act established National Resource Centers (NRC) for each region of the non-western world, with funds committed to buy publications in every subject. Cornell received the first Southeast Asian center grant, which has been renewed annually and is the oldest continuously supported NRC in the United States. The Rockefeller, Ford, and Mellon Foundations awarded endowments which continue to provide funding for library staff and acquisitions, a tradition that distinguishes the Echols Collection from all others at Cornell and other Southeast Asia Collections in the United States.
Clientele:
The primary clientele for the John M. Echols Collection is the global community of scholars interested in Southeast Asia. The Echols Collection is the library of record for Southeast Asia in many subject fields and its largest users are through interlibrary services. Cornell has a strong Southeast Asia Program and the 15 faculty, 95 graduate students, 5-10 visiting scholars, and dozen undergraduate majors constitute our resident users.Collection Description:
In 1993 the Collection consisted of 230,000 volumes, plus an equal number of microtext items, and some 50,000 serial titles. An estimated 30,000 photographic items, some 2,000 audio and 300 video cassettes, a rapidly expanding set of electronic data bases, and over 200 cubic feet of papers and documents dealing with Southeast Asia, are held in our archives and other Cornell libraries. Bibliographic records for most of these records are now accessible on-line.Existing strength is at the 5 level in all languages in some 78 subjects (see attached Subject conspectus). Budget constraints in the past three years have caused us to lower our current goal to 3 W in seventeen subjects, while retaining 5 F in 61 subjects defined for participants in the Library of Congress Overseas Acquisitions Program.
Subject Categories ECS CCI Dictionaries and Reference Books 5W 5W Export-import directories, other business sources 5W 5W Bibliography, library science, and the book 5W 5W Education: History of Education 5W 5W Pedagogy and teaching 5W 3F Philosophy and psychology 5W 5W Religion: General religion and Islam 5W 5W Christianity 5W 5W Hinduism and Buddhism 5W 5W Other Religions 5W 5W Anthropology and Folklore: Ethnological descriptions 5W 5W Customary law and customs 5W 5W Folklore and folk literature 5W 5W Sociology: Social conditions of Southeast Asia 5W 5W Demography and family planning 5W 5W Communications, mass media and the press 5W 5W Census publications 5W 5W Economics, theoretical and general 5W 5W Economics of Southeast Asia 5W 5W Government and Politics: Political conditions of the region and international relations 5W 5W Political parties 5W 5W History: General history and current events,general SEA 5W 5W Primary sources, historical chronicles 5W 5W Archeology and precolonial period 5W 5W Colonial period 5W 5W History of moves toward Independence 5W 5W Museums and museology 5W 5W Local history 5W 5W Family history 5W 5W Military and naval science 5W 5W Geography and the environment: Geography, transmigration,urbanization, development 5W 5W Environment, ecosystems, ecology 5W 5W Surveys of natural resources 5W 5W Science and Technology: General science and technology 5W 3F Geology and mineralogy 5W 3F Forestry and silviculture 5W 3F Marine fisheries (oceanography) 5W 3F Literature: Modern creative literature 5W 5W Texts of literary classics 5W 5W Literary criticism 5W 5W Theoretical and general linguistics 5W 5W Descriptions of Southeast Asian languages 5W 5W Arts: Architecture 5W 5W Exhibition catalogs 5W 3F Performing arts 5W 5W Games,sports,physical fitness,scouting 5W 3F Medicine and Health: Clinical medicine 5W 3F Traditional systems of medicine 5W 5W Public health and socioeconomic aspects of medicine 5W 5W Agriculture and Water Resources: Technical agriculture (including pond fisheries) 5W 5W Water resources and irrigation 5W 5W Socioeconomic aspects of agriculture 5W 5W Gardening and horticulture 5W 3F Cookery 5W 3F Law: Chronological publications of laws, primary sources 5W 5W Compilations of primary legal materials 5W 5W Codes 5W 5W Commentaries on laws and codes 5W 5W Constitutions 5W 5W Court decisions and reports, rulings of administrative tribunals and authorities 5W 5W Rules of court, rules of practice, procedure of administrative tribunals 5W 3F Single laws, compilations (manuals), rules and regulations on special subjects 5W 3F Digests, indexes and citators to court and administrative decisions and reports of administrative tribunals 5W 5W Law revision and code commission reports, studies and reports of judicial councils and conferences, proceedings of constitutional conventions 5W 3F Legal reference books 5W 5W Legal treatises,biographies,works on trials and international law 5W 5W Legal textbooks 5W 3F Theses and dissertations: 5W 5W
