Overview of Campus Library Collections

Library collections related to South Asia reflect the fortunes of South Asian studies at the University. For most of this century, a few faculty offered even fewer courses on South Asia. Books published in North America, the British Isles, and Europe satisfied their needs. When they required additional materials, they used the libraries at Duke University, which had been building research collections since 1961 and had responsibility for South Asia under the cooperative agreements.

As the Religious Studies Department at Carolina matured in the 1980s and 1990s, it added James Sanford to teach Buddhism, Joanne Waghorne to teach Hinduism, and Carl Ernst to teach Islam. Craig Melchert in Linguistics offered Sanskrit on a regular basis, and Allan Life in English did research on South Indian architecture and dance. These individuals needed stronger collections to support their teaching, and the Library expanded its efforts. In the mid 1990s, these faculty joined forces with their colleagues at Duke University, North Carolina Central University, and North Carolina State University to strengthen the academic programs and library collections associated with South Asia in the Triangle and apply for grants to support them.

More recently, UNC hired several new faculty in South Asian Studies. They include Yasmin Saikia in the History Department to teach the history of South Asia; Pika Ghosh in Art History to teach Asian art; Meenu Tewari in City and Regional Planning to teach international economic development and regional planning; Lisa Pearce in Sociology to teach Religion, Family, and Fertility in South Asia; and Shantanu Phukan and Allison Busch in Asian Studies to teach Hindi and Urdu. To support them, the Library has strengthened its collections of South Asian materials considerably. Through participation in the Library of Congress South Asia Cooperative Acquisition Program, it now acquires hundreds of books published in India in English, Hindi, Urdu, and Tamil and an equivalent number of titles on South Asia published in the West each year. As a member of the South Asia Microform Project (SAMP) at the Center for Research Libraries, Chicago, the Library has unlimited access to thousands of out of print and rare South Asian titles in microform via interlibrary loan. In addition, a Bibliographer for South Asia, Avinash Maheshwary, is now available to provide reference service to faculty and students. For assistance, call 962-1095 or 660-5841, or email avinash.maheshwary@duke.edu.