No. 012 Newsletter - Association for Asian Studies. Committee on American Library Resources in the Far East

              fa f4 stefl &tefl g CO COMMITTEE MMITTEE ON AMERICAN LIBRARY RESOURCES ON THE FAR EAST OF THE association FOAASIAN por FOR ASIAN studle STUDIES STUDIE S edwin G beal jr co orientalia division chairman library of congress washington D C 200 20540 november 17 196 1965 newsletter no 12 by this time many of you have probably learned of the death of our chief dr horace I 1 poleman this is a great loss to all of us who are engaged in the study of the orient and it is felt with a special depth by those of us who worked so closely with him here in the orientalia division it is also the third blow which we who are concerned with oriental matters in the library of congress have suffered this year I 1 1 refer to the death of dr T L yuan on february 6 and to that of dr osamu sliimizu simizu shimizu on march 8 since unhappy news of this type sometimes fails totea tol tot to reach ea ch the persons who would be concerned I 1 am enclosing a copy of the article about horace which appeared in the library of congress information bulletin we shall miss him both as an extraordinarily able leader andas and as a close and helpful friend enclosure 1 I 1 the union catalog of of monographic works in far eastern languages 7 in american collections in newsletter no 11 1 I circulated excerpts pertaining to union catalogs from a letter which professor mary C wright wrote on may 21 1958 and I 1 asked for comments by far the most thoughtful I 1 have received to date are in a letter from dr A kaiming chiu dated october 19 1965 1 I am therefore reproducing his letter herewith enclosure 2 as a stimulus to discussion dr chiu has been interested in this problem for well over 20 yearsand ye years arsand and has given it much thought and attention I 1 have suggested to dr tsuneishi that this letter should be circulated to CALRFE he has agreed adding that the sooner the better please read his letter carefully and send your comments to dr tsuneishi with a carbon to me in the coming weeks I 1 hope to assemble some fairly detailed information on the cyrillic subject union catalog which was a special project in the library of congress during the years 19521956 1952 1956 it seems that the problems which were faced in the development of that catalog the decisions reached and the experience gained are in many ways pertinent to the problems we are facing now I 1 have examined the files of the resulting catalog have studied the relevant pap passages sages in the annual reports of the librarian of congress and have talked with some of the survivors of the operation at present I 1 do not yet know enough about it to attempt an account and I 1 am now occupied with many other pressing matters but I 1 am sure that this information when I 1 get it together will be of much interest