Name of repository
Harvard-Yenching Library
Address
2 Divinity Ave.
Cambridge, MA 02138
Contact
Raymond Lum
Telephone
617 495-0585
Fax
617-496-6008
Email
rlum@fas.harvard.edu
Description of the Harvard-Yenching Library
The Harvard-Yenching Library is Harvard University’s primary resource
for research materials on traditional and modern East Asia, in East Asian
and Western language. It holds the largest collection on East Asia in an
academic library outside of Asia, with holdings of well over one million
items in every format. It has a particularly strong collection of rare
books and manuscripts and personal papers. Its photographic collections
encompass some 70,000 original images.
http://hcl.harvard.edu/harvard-yenching
Description of Image Holdings
The bulk of the photographic holdings relate to China, with smaller numbers
relating to Japan and Korea. Although some 5,000 of the images were made
by a professional photographer, most were made by amateurs in the course
of their work and residence in Asia, particularly as missionaries. The
collections include photographic albums produced for the tourist trade,
photographs contained in scrapbooks, loose images found in collections
of personal papers, (e.g., British American Tobacco Co., Chinese Customs
Service, Muslims in China). A unique collection, the Hedda Morrison photographs,
document lifestyles, street scenes, handicraft production, religious
observances, and architectural features, all of which virtually disappeared
in the 20th century.
What's in VIA?
Two of the collections have been digitized and are in VIA: the Hedda Morrison
photographs of China, 1933-1946, some 5000 images; and the Rev. Claude
L. Pickens, Jr., photographs of Muslims in China, 1926-1937, some 1000
images. The Library’s holdings of photographs of the borderlands
of western China, made by Joseph Rock, are included in the Arnold Arboretum’s
web page for its LDI-funded project “South Central China and Tibet:
Hotspot of Diversity,” http://www.arboretum.harvard.edu/library/tibet/expeditions.html.
The Morrison collection is described on a web page that is part of the
Harvard-Yenching Library’s home page: http://hcl.harvard.edu/harvard-yenching/morrison/
How we use VIA
Most of Harvard-Yenching Library’s VIA records consist of “work” records
representing one image cataloged at the item level. When dealing with
large collections, it is also useful to be able to retrieve groups of
images that have physical or intellectual coherence. When that is the
case, “group” records have been created and the images ordered
in sequence. Harvard-Yenching Library has created group records for easy
retrieval of images from photograph albums. The group records allow an
entire album of images to be retrieved at once in the order in which
they appear in the album.
Permissions
The digital copy of any Harvard-Yenching Library image found in VIA is
for personal use only, and may not be sold, loaned, copied or published
without the express permission of the Harvard-Yenching Library, Harvard
University.
Reproduction
Reproductions are available for a fee for scholarly use only, including
publication in scholarly monographs. Consult the Library.
Copyright
The President and Fellows of Harvard College hold copyright for the Library’s
images that are in VIA, with a few exceptions.
