South East Asian Collection

• Collection Details
• Description of Collection
• Subjects of the Collection
• Collection Material and Size of Collection
• Collection Management Information
• Collection Catalogue Information

Collection Details

South East Asian Collection held at University of Durham Library [Institution record]

• Collection home page
• Opening hours
• Access regulations
• Interlibrary loan regulations
• Contact details
• Contact e-mail

Description of Collection

Content description

Monographs: approximately 1500 volumes, virtually all in Western languages Newspapers: Current Year of the weekly Straits Times Periodicals: None

History and development

South East Asia has never been an area of great academic interest at Durham University, reflected in the small size (around 500 items) of the ex-Oriental Library collection on SE Asia. The collection has been built up more as a result of specific research interests and general purchasing in the arts and social sciences than as part of a general plan in this area - Durham has no department of South East Asian studies.

Strengths

The main areas of strength are: History, where we hold c.570 volumes, of which approximately 150 concern the Vietnam War. Anthropology of Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines: c.200 volumes. Colonial Malaya and the Dutch East Indies: c.150 volumes

General arrangement and access regulations

Durham University Library's South East Asian collections are on open access in the Main Library. The collection is distributed across both the ex-Oriental Library of Congress sequence and the Dewey sequences of the library. Former stock of the Oriental Library (closed 1987) is held in Library of Congress classification. All new accessions and some older material which has been recatalogued online is in Dewey. The material in Dewey is classified by subject rather than by country and is spread throughout the library.

Subjects of the Collection

Regions of Asia

South East Asia.

Countries

Brunei, Burma, Cambodia, East Timor, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, The Philippines, Vietnam.

Languages of material

Burmese, English, French, German, Indonesian, Malay, Thai.

Subjects

Anthropology, Archaeology, Arts, Economics, Geography, History, International relations, Politics and government, Religion.

Collection Material and Size of Collection

Total size of collection

c.1500 volumes, 1 newspaper run

Size of collection - vernacular

20 volumes (1 Burmese, 6 Indonesian, 5 Malay and 8 Thai)

Size of collection - western

c.1500 volumes, 1 newspaper run

Collection Management Information

Annual intake

c.50 volumes

Content date range

0 to 0 AD

Interlibrary loan procedure

Durham lends its Asian Studies material on the same basis as other material.

Collection Catalogue Information

Catalogue

Two-thirds of Durham University Library's South East Asian Studies material appears in the OPAC. The rest - the material still classified in Library of Congress classification - is recorded in the library's manual catalogues - the Oriental Draft catalogue for material received up to 1975 and the Author catalogue, closed in 1990. These are available on Level 2 of the Main Library.

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