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Draft:C. V. Starr East Asian Library

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  • Comment: Probably notable, but currently the article only cites primary sources. Please add some secondary sources. —pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 21:54, 1 November 2025 (UTC)


C. V. Starr East Asian Library
C. V. Starr East Asian Library - University of California, Berkeley
C. V. Starr East Asian Library, built in 2007. View from Memorial Glade
LocationUniversity of California, Berkeley
Berkeley, California, United States
Established2007
ArchitectTod Williams Billie Tsien Architects
Other information
Websitehttps://www.lib.berkeley.edu/visit/east-asian

C. V. Starr East Asian Library

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The C. V. Starr East Asian Library is part of the University of California, Berkeley Library System. Located near the center of campus facing Memorial Glade, it contains more than 900,000 volumes of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean materials, including woodblock prints, rare maps and scrolls, contemporary political posters, and Buddhist scriptures. The library is the first freestanding library in the United States constructed exclusively for an East Asian collection[1].

Architecture

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The 68,000-square-foot building was carved into the steep incline of Observatory Hill. As a result, visitors enter the library via a bridge on the third level.

Perforated metal screens were installed behind the bronze grilles to prevent 45% of direct sunlight from entering the building and favorably reducing the library’s cooling loads[2].

Stacks containing the library's collection encircle the atrium on all levels. Interspersed are offices and study carrels. The third (and main) level features a custom-designed circulation desk fashioned from a slab of Claro walnut wood from Sacramento[3].

History and Collection

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Built in 2007, the library traces its origins to the deposit in 1896 of the private library of John Fryer, the first professor of Oriental Languages at the University of California, Berkeley[4]. Other early gifts, such as the library of Kiang Kang-hu, the Horace G. Carpentier Endowment, and the collection of E. T. Williams, expanded the size and scope of the core collection.

The East Asiatic Library (renamed “East Asian” in 1991) was established in 1947 as a branch within the UC Berkeley Library system. By the early 1950s, the library’s Japanese holdings ranked first among American university collections due in large part to the acquisition of 100,000 items from the Mitsui Library and the 8,850-volume Murakami Library[5].

The Center for Chinese Studies Library began as an off-campus reading room of the Center for Chinese Studies in 1957. Eventually it became affiliated with the Institute of East Asian Studies, relocated to campus, and developed into one of the largest academic repositories of materials on contemporary China outside of China.

In 2008, the East Asian Library and Center for Chinese Studies Library merged their collections in the C. V. Starr East Asian Library. Its combined holdings make it one of the top two such collections in the United States outside of the Library of Congress[6].

References

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  1. ^ "UC to open new Asian library". East Bay Times. 2008-03-14. Retrieved 2025-11-01.
  2. ^ "C. V. Starr East Asian Library | ALA". www.ala.org. Retrieved 2025-11-01.
  3. ^ "C.V. Starr East Asian Library | 2009-01-18 | Architectural Record". www.architecturalrecord.com. Retrieved 2025-11-01.
  4. ^ "St. Paul's College Heritage". heritage.spc.edu.hk. Retrieved 2025-11-02.
  5. ^ "Explore the C. V. Starr East Asian Library | UC Berkeley Library". www.lib.berkeley.edu. Retrieved 2025-11-01.
  6. ^ "UC Berkeley / C.V. Starr East Asian Library". Calisphere. Retrieved 2025-11-01.
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