No. 054 Bulletin - Association for Asian Studies, inc., Committee on East Asian Libraries

              EDITORIAL NOTE
A. Kaiming Chiu, 1898- 1977
A Memorial
Alfred Kaiming Chiu, Librarian Emeritus of the Harvard- Yenching Library
and Honorary Curator of Rare Books in the Harvard- Yenching Library, died
in Cambridge on November 13, 1977, after a short illness. He was 79.
Widely acknowledged as the dean of East Asian librarianship in the United
States, Dr. Chiu was graduated in economics and library science from Central
China College in Wuchang, China, in 1922, and served for two years as
Librarian of the University of Amoy before coming to the United States in
1924. After completing another library degree at the New York Public
Library School ( later to become the School of Library Service of Columbia
University), Dr. Chiu came to study at Harvard, receiving his M. A. in 1927
and his Ph. D. in economics in 193 3.
It was during the period of his studies at Harvard that Archibald Cary
Coolidge, the Director of the Harvard Library, enlisted Dr. Chiu's aid in
organizing the university's small but growing Chinese and Japanese
collections. For almost four decades, from 1927 to 1965, the year of his
retirement. Dr. Chiu served with great distinction as the first Librarian
of the Harvard- Yenching Library, then known as the Chinese- Japanese Library
of the Harvard- Yenching Institute at Harvard University. Under his able
direction and dedicated service, the Harvard- Yenching Library collection
expanded from fewer than 7,000 to more than 400,000 volumes, and became
the finest and the largest university library of its kind in the Western
world.
Dr. Chiu, a bibliophile and an expert on Chinese rare books, was the
author of the Harvard- Yenching classification scheme for East Asian Books,
a synthesis of traditional Chinese and Western classification systems, which
was subsequently adopted by most of the major East Asian libraries in the
United States and several others in Europe and Australia. His introduction
of the use of romanized entries on catalog cards for Chinese and Japanese
books has also become a universal standard in the cataloging of Oriental
materials. Among his other pioneering contributions to East Asian
librarianship were the first centralized cataloging program he supervised
at Harvard of World War II Chinese publications, and the printing of the
Harvard- Yenching Library catalog in book form, a project which was unfor  tunately
interrupted by the outbreak of the Pacific War after the publication
of the first three volumes in Peking.
Dr. Chiu's professional advice was widely sought by other American univer  sities.
Immediately after World War II, he was consulted by the Hoover
Institution at Stanford University in the establishment of Hoover's
Chinese Collection. He also advised the University of California in
Berkeley in the reorganization of its East Asiatic Library. Following his
retirement, he became a consultant to the University of Minnesota and helped
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found its East Asian Library. From 1966 to 1970, at the invitation of the
Chinese University of Hong Kong, he served as the Institution's first
University Librarian. His thirty- year association with the Boston Museum of
Fine Arts as a Consultant in Chinese Literature also continued until 1970.
At the time of his death. Dr. Chiu was supervising the listing of the
Harvard- Yenching Library's rare books collection for publication in a
catalog.
To the undersigned. Dr. Chiu was a dear friend, a respected colleague, and
a superb teacher for twenty- five years. His erudition, kindness, devotion,
and wisdom were inspirational and will be sorely missed. His was a full,
useful, and productive life. He will long be remembered as a steadfast
pioneer and faithful worker in a field which presented, as it continues to
present, a myriad of challenges. Such is the legacy I know we shall all
cherish as we try to follow in his steps.
( Eugene W. Wu)
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