The Austrian National Library (ANL) was founded in 1368. Its own holdings cover over 11.8 million printed books and other documents. It is open to scientific research, and offers diverse service facilities. Currently 18.000 objects relating to China are accessible through the internet. Its holdings are gradually digitized. The ibrary sponsors regular exhibitions and other events such as readings, book presentations, symposia, and concerts.
The Canadian Art Gallery of Greater Victoria opened in 1951. With almost 20,000 works of art, the Art Gallery has the largest public collection in British Columbia, housed in different buildings. It is home to a Department of Asian Collection. The collection of amber and ivory carvings is one of the largest and most exquisite in North America. Several impressive objects are on permanent exhibition including a grand Chinese Bell, cast in 1641 during the Ming dynasty that was presented to the City of Victoria in 1903. The Asian Garden is a fine example of the architecture of a Japanese Meiji period Shinto Shrine, now perfectly situated among bamboo and Japanese maples.
The Bibliothèque nationale de France collects, preserves and provides access to the documentary national heritage.
The BnF collections are unique in the world: they include14 million books and magazines but also manuscripts, prints, photographs, maps and plans, scores, coins, medals, sound, video and multimedia documents, sets, costumes... These collections continue to grow regularly. A comprehensive classification provides access to every intellectual, artistic or scientific discipline. Over one million visitors discover the library each year and over 3 million documents are available for free via Gallica, the BnF's digital library.
Founded in 1558 as court library of the house of Wittelsbach, the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek is one of the prime European universal libraries and of world renown as international research library. It forms Germany's virtual national library together with other libraries. The Bayerische Staatsbibliothek is also the central state library and repository library of the Free State of Bavaria. With 10,5 million volumes, about 59,000 current periodicals in electronic or printed form and about 130,000 manuscripts the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek is one of the most important knowledge centers of the world. Every year approximately 130,000 volumes are added, which are selected and catalogued systematically according to scholarly criteria.
The library's unique collection profile is characterised by extremely precious manuscripts, rare printed books and comprehensive special collections from thousands of years of cultural heritage.
The Ethnological Museum Berlin evolved from the collections of the royal cabinet of art of the Kings of Prussia. Since its formal foundation in 1873 it has assembled one of the largest collections of its kind worldwide. The museum’s holdings comprise ca. 500,000 ethnographic, archaeological and historic-cultural objects from Africa, Asia, America, Australia and the South Seas. They are complemented by an ethnomusicological archive of 140,000 sound recordings, a photographic department of 285,000 photographs, 20,000 films and a library and archive of approximately 200,000 printed and manuscript documents. Due to its moving into a new building in 2019, it is currently not accessible to the public.
In 1941, the Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia was established at the University of Tokyo for the comprehensive study of Eastern culture. Research focuses on regions where Asian languages are spoken, which extends beyond the limits of continental east Asia and Japan, reaching out as far west as north Africa and to the south, Indonesia. Members at the Institute have their own network in Japan and abroad for periodically conducting on-site research and attending international conferences to exchange and present ideas. The Institute houses a library unparalleled in the world with its ,collection of classical Chinese books. The Institute is also home to the Research and Information Center for Asian Studies (RICAS), which catalogues a variety of data concerning Asian studies and provides worldwide access to its databases.
The libraries or library of Waseda University are one of the largest libraries in Japan. Established in 1882, they currently hold some 4.5 million volumes and 46.000 serials. The collection "Furyo Bunko" in the Library of Waseda University houses a Collection of a total of ca.8400 Chinese items related to popular literature, folklore and social history. Among them it contains as many as 200 titles of hokan (baojuan: a genre of narrative literature of popular and mostly religious nature). A great many popular materials were integrated into the library as late as 1989.
National Diet Library is among the largest libraries in the world. It was established in 1948 for the purpose of assisting members of the National Diet of Japan (Kokkai) in researching matters of public policy. The library is similar in purpose and scope to the United States Library of Congress. The Library consists of two main facilities in Tokyo and Kyoto, and several other branch libraries throughout Japan.
The Japanese National Museum of Ethnology, known as Minpaku, was founded in 1974 and opened to the public in November 1977. Its goals are to conduct cultural anthropological and ethnological research and to increase awareness and understanding of societies and cultures around the world based on that research.
The National Museum of Japanese History, known popularly in Japanese as Rekihaku, is a general museum of Japanese history that houses and displays some 200,000 artifacts of historical importance and cultural value that together help to tell the story of Japan's past. In developing its galleries, Rekihaku has endeavored to produce concrete, visual exhibits that facilitate an understanding of Japanese history and culture, relying on both the numerous authentic artifacts in its collection,and precise reproductions and scale models. As member of an inter−university research consortium, Rekihaku also serves as a center for research and graduate study, participating in exchanges with scholars nation-wide,and providing training to students enrolled in its graduate program.
Three scholarly disciplines inform Rekihaku's approach to Japanese history. One is history, in the strict sense, relying principally on written records and other documentary materials; the second, archaeology, studies the material remains of past human activity as they emerge from excavations; the third is folklore, which examines the folk customs and lore that are still a part of people's lives today. Together with related scientific techniques,these three disciplines of History, Archaeology, and Folk Studies form the basis of the multidisciplinary and integrative understanding of Japanese history that is the common goal of the Rekihaku staff of scholars. It is an understanding of Japanese history that Rekihaku seeks to share with the general public and scholars elsewhere through its exhibitions, publications, and other channels of communication.
Rekihaku was founded in 1981, and opened its exhibit doors in 1983. The permanent exhibitions currently span five galleries subdivided into a total of twenty-five topics,with an emphasis on the history of everyday life among ordinary people. Rekihaku is also discussing plans to restructure its standing exhibitions, including the addition of a number of entirely new exhibits. And since 1999,Rekihaku has offered a doctoral program in Japanese History as a member of Sokendai,the Graduate University for Advanced Studies.
In accordance with the National University Corporation Law, Rekihaku has been redesignated as the National Museum of Japanese History, National Institutes for the Humanities, Inter-University Research Institute Corporation since 2004.
At the dawn of the 21st century, Rekihaku remains committed to its twin goals: to serve both as a museum cherished by the public and as a research institute at the vanguard of the academy.
The origins of Toyo Bunko date back further than its official founding in 1924 to the late 19th century after the Shigakukai (Historical Society) was founded at Tokyo Imperial University, marking the beginning of a scientific historical research community in Japan. It was around that time that Iwasaki Hisaya began collecting Japanese language sources on history and culture. Then in 1901 Iwasaki decided to purchase Oxford University linguist Max Mueller's 10,000 volume personal collection of mainly Indian Buddhist scripture and donate it to Tokyo Imperial University. (The collection would be destroyed by fire in the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923.) In 1917, Iwasaki made a similar purchase of the personal collection of George Ernest Morrison, China correspondent for the London Times and special advisor to the president of the Republic of China. It was the Morrison Collection that would form the main body of Toyo Bunko Library at the time of its official founding.
Museum Volkenkunde – the National Museum of Ethnology – is a museum about people housed in a historic building just five minutes’ walk from Leiden’s central station.
A huge totem pole greets visitors as they enter the museum through the garden. Museum Volkenkunde presents regularly changing exhibitions and its permanent display features objects from eight different cultural regions. Objects that all have a story to tell about humankind.
Stories about universal human themes like mourning, celebration, ornamentation, prayer, conflict; stories that inspire visitors to find out more about the huge cultural diversity to be found in the world. From Oceania to the Arctic, from Geisha to the Buddha, and from Mecca to Leiden: come to Museum Volkenkunde and discover that, despite cultural differences, we are all essentially the same.
For more information about the organisation:
pr@volkenkunde.nl
tel. 0031 88 0042 830
The actual "Wereldmuseum" in Rotterdam (The Netherlands) was founded in 1851 as collection of the Royal Dutch Yacht-Club, under the auspices of Prince Hendrik of the Netherlands. It was formally transformed and renamed into "Prince Hendrik Maritime Museum" and turned over into the custody of the City of Rotterdam after the death of Prince Hendrik. With its collection the "Museum voor Land- en Volkenkunde" (Museum of Geography and Ethnography) was founded in 1883 by the city of Rotterdam, which was later renamed "Wereldmuseum" (Museum of World Cultures) . Alongside similar museums in Leiden and Amsterdam it is one of the oldest and largest ethnographical museums in the Netherlands.
The museum houses approximately 110.000 objects and 100.000 photos and slides. Most collections are of maritime interest (models of ships, instruments for seafaring) and ethnographical objects from all over the world.
The idea of opening in Lisboa (Portugal) a museum dedicated to the Orient coincided with the establishment of the Fundação Oriente, in 1988. Following a Portuguese tradition of overseas relations, the Foundation built links between civilizations in the West and in the East. Its legacy is the spirit of the bygone Portuguese navigators who started the globalization process in the late 15th century. Its collections of Portuguese and Asian art are a most important demonstration of the historical encounters between West and East. The opening of the Museu do Oriente, in 2008, marked a new cycle for the Fundação.
The National Museum of Ethnology is an ethnology museum in Lisbon, Portugal, its collection features indigenous art from the cultures of Portugal, Africa, Asia, Oceania, and the Americas. It was established in 1965 and consists of around 40,000 objects, collected in several parts of the world, although the most representative collections are the ones from Portugal – both continental and insular- and those from the former colonies. These objects were mostly obtained through missions organized by the museum itself, or by its request. In several cases, they were also bought to private collectors or were the result of private people donations, or public or private entities ones.
History of the British Museum
The British Museum was founded in 1753, the first national public museum in the world. From the beginning it granted free admission to all 'studious and curious persons'. Visitor numbers have grown from around 5,000 a year in the eighteenth century to nearly 6 million today.
The Department of Asia
The Department of Asia covers the material and visual cultures of Asia, a vast geographical area embracing East, South and Southeast Asia, parts of Central Asia, and extending to Siberia. The collection spans the Neolithic, from about 5000 BC, to the present day. Represented societies and groups range from complex urban civilisations to largely rural communities; they also include the distinctive cultures and ways of life of indigenous people and other minority groups. Contemporary art and artefacts, in addition to strategic acquisitions of important historic works, fit in exciting ways into the Department’s active collecting programme.
Key areas include a large and comprehensive collection of sculpture from the Indian subcontinent, including the celebrated limestone Buddhist reliefs from Amaravati, and an outstanding range of early Japanese antiquities and graphic art.
The Chinese collection includes the Buddhist paintings from the Dunhuang caves in Central Asia and the Admonitions of the Court Instructress (also called the Admonitions scroll), widely regarded as the most important scroll-painting in the history of Chinese art. It also includes examples of lacquer, bronze, jade, Chinese ceramics, and porcelain. The department also has one of the earliest and largest ethnographic collections of textiles and everyday objects from Southeast Asia.
Elsewhere in the Museum, Near Eastern archaeology and Islam are covered by the Department of the Middle East, the pre-Neolithic by the Department of Britain, Europe and Prehistory , while coins from the region are kept in the Department of Coins and Medals.
The American Museum of Natural History, located in New York, is one of the largest natural history museums in the world. Since its founding in 1869, the museum has been known for its extensive collections. The museum which is extremely rich in displays has 42 exhibition halls with a collection of more than 36 million items, including five major sections: astronomy, mineral, human, paleontology and modern biology. In addition to the collection of specimens from within the United States, the museum also has representative specimens from South America, Africa, Europe, Asia, and Australia. The museum holds various types of thematic exhibitions from time to time, such as animal exhibitions, antiquities exhibitions, etc. The Museum has advanced its global mission to discover, interpret, and disseminate information about human cultures, the natural world, and the universe through a wide-ranging program of scientific research, education, and exhibition.
The Harvard-Yenching Library is the largest university library for East Asian research in the Western world. Although as an organized library it dates only from 1928, the collection can trace its beginnings back to 1879, when Chinese was first offered as part of Harvard University's regular curriculum. In that year a group of Bostonians engaged in the China trade invited Ge Kunhua 戈鯤化, a Chinese scholar from the city of Ningbo in Zhejiang Province, to give instruction in Chinese at Harvard. The small collection of books that was bought for his courses, the first acquisitions in any East Asian language at the Harvard College Library, marked the beginning of a Chinese collection. A Japanese collection was similarly launched in 1914 when two Japanese professors, Hattori Unokichi 服部宇之吉 and Anesaki Masaharu 姉崎正治, both of Tokyo Imperial University, came to lecture at Harvard and donated several important groups of Japanese publications on Sinology and Buddhism to the Harvard College Library. In 1928 these two collections, then consisting of 4,526 volumes in Chinese and 1,668 volumes in Japanese, were transferred from Widener Library to the newly established Chinese-Japanese Library of the Harvard-Yenching Institute, which had itself been independently incorporated that year in Massachusetts. Dr. A. Kaiming Ch'iu 裘開明, a renowned bibliophile and then a Harvard Ph.D. candidate, who had begun cataloging the collections a year before, was appointed librarian of the Chinese-Japanese Library.
With financial support from the Harvard-Yenching Institute, the expert bibliographical knowledge of Dr. Ch'iu, and the assistance of Yenching University Library in Peking, the library's collections grew rapidly. At the end of its first decade the library's holdings amounted to more than 110,000 volumes—18 times the original size. Although the library first collected only in Chinese and Japanese, with the major emphasis on the humanities, subsequent expansion in Harvard's East Asian curriculum led to a similar expansion in the library's scope. Tibetan, Mongolian, and Manchu publications were added, as were Western-language monographs and journals. A Korean collection was inaugurated in 1951, and a Vietnamese collection was added in 1973. Social science publications were given increased attention in the post-World War II years, and collecting in this area has been greatly accelerated since the mid-1960s. Thus, the once predominantly humanistic collection has gradually evolved into a research library that encompasses East Asian materials in all of the academic disciplines, including, to some extent, the natural and applied sciences.
In 1965 the name Chinese-Japanese Library of the Harvard-Yenching Institute was changed to Harvard-Yenching Library in order to reflect more accurately the expanded nature of the library's collections. The management of the library, which had been under the Harvard-Yenching Institute from the beginning, was transferred in 1976 to the Harvard College Library.
The J. Paul Getty Museum is a representative California human landscape with two locations: the Getty Villa in Malibu and the Getty Center in Los Angeles. These two open museums welcome nearly 1.8 million visitors each year, making them among the most visited museums in the United States.
The J. Paul Getty Museum is known for its collections of French classical furniture, artworks, medieval manuscripts as well as Roman, Greek and European paintings. The museum inspires curiosity, enjoyment and understanding of the visual arts by collecting, preserving, exhibiting and interpreting works of art of outstanding quality and historical importance. The museum also creates an art space to serve public education by providing free access to its own digital images for public use and holding cultural activities such as art exhibitions, academic seminars and public education.
