The first issue of a South & Southeast Asia, Columbia University Libraries Newsletter has been launched. Those interested in subscribing to future newsletter mailings, and in viewing archived newsletters, can visit the following link. The newsletter will provide periodic updates of South/Southeast Asia library acquisitions and developments at Columbia University Libraries. […]
Colonial Law in Africa — New Online Primary Resource at Columbia
Columbia University Libraries has acquired a new online primary resource: Colonial Law in Africa: African Government Gazettes, 1808-1919 and 1920-1945 An extensive collection of “digitized” legal records on British colonial African territories, covering the 19th and 20th centuries, selected from the British Foreign & Commonwealth Office, and part of the “British Online Archives” series from […]
Joel Larus Book Fund Established at Columbia University
This year, South Asia collection development at Columbia University was enriched by a new charitable book fund, for acquiring materials related to India’s foreign policy following independence, including issues of national security and maritime affairs. The Joel Larus Book Fund is being distributed from the Community Fund of Sarasota County on an annual basis. Joel Larus is […]
Book dances its way back to the Libraries after being checked out decades ago
A few months ago I received the following email: I recently came across a book from the Columbia Library, Coreografía Gauchesca by Jorge M.Furt, which was due back January 11, 1934. I suspect it was taken out by my uncle who was on the faculty at about that time, probably for consultation by his wife […]
Baltic and East European Modernist Collections
Since 2009 my colleagues and I have taken special pains to bolster Columbia’s holdings of rare (and in some cases unique) titles in Baltic & East European modernist materials from the dynamic interwar decades, as well as avant-garde (Surrealist, Expressionist, Dadaist, etc.) literature. We have secured a number of notable acquisitions—more than 150, by my […]
The Ukrainian Print Legacy of the “Surma” Book & Music Store
Earlier this summer, many of you no doubt saw the article by Noah Remnick “With Shop’s Closing, Little Ukraine Grows Smaller,” in the NYT of June 6. The article concerned the closing of Surma Book & Music Company. Founded by Ukrainian immigrant Myron Surmach some 98 years ago, the shop had occupied the East 7th […]
Supplemental Purchase Expands Russian Imperial & Early Soviet Sheet Music Collection
One of the most visually exciting additions to Columbia’s holdings was the purchase of ninety-five additional examples of late Imperial and early Soviet sheet music. Columbia’s holdings, catalogued collectively at https://clio.columbia.edu/catalog/10290450 are quite likely the largest in any North American collection from this era, now including some 268 titles. […]
SAMP Open Archives Initiative
Columbia University is one of 23 institutions that has joined the South Asia Materials Project Open Archives Initiative. The SAMP Open Archives Initiative will create and maintain a collection of open archives materials in all academic disciplines for the study of South Asia. For more details, see the SAMP OAi business plan. The SAMP OAi has […]
Imagining the World: Exhibit Reception
Thanks to all who joined us at the reception for the reception for the exhibit opening of Imagining the World: Unexplored Global Collections at Columbia on April 17. Some pictures of the opening (and the exhibit itself) are included below. The exhibit will be in the Chang Octagon Room of the Rare Book and Manuscript […]
“Imagining the World: Unexplored Global Collections at Columbia”
Opening the week of April 4, 2016, in the Chang Octagon of The Rare Books & Manuscripts Library, a new exhibition will offer researchers an opportunity to view a sampling of the rare and the unusual in Columbia’s Global Studies collections. The items on display until June 24, range in date from 1454 CE to […]