Preserving Myanmar's manuscripts and historical documents

University Central Library/Cornell's Collaborative Projects

Myanmar shares with other Theravada Buddhist societies a rich literary tradition. This was passed down on parabeik and peiza through generations of monastic literary centers to the present time, a tradition filled with commentaries about the dhamma, as well as monarchal chronicles, poetry and sage advice. Cornell University Library joined Yangon University’s scholars and librarians of Universities Central Library [UCL] between 1988 and 1996 to preserve, microfilm, and make accessible these valuable manuscripts. Funds from Cornell’s endowment and American foundations supplemented Yangon University funding; additional efforts to microfilm Burmese newspapers and periodicals secured by Cornell in years past enabled both universities to complete long runs of periodicals now shared by oncoming generations of scholars. Concurrently with our effort, Japanese scholars and librarians carried out microfilm projects on several locations within Myanmar and actively pursue studies of these materials, as demonstrated by their support for this symposium. The University of Washington joined this effort in 2001-2 by committing library funds & staff to help digitize and catalog dozens of key articles and monographs by scholars in the Burma Historical Commission, as well as the Burma Historical Society. This paper describes the rationale used to gain funding, the process by which these funds were secured, how the project was conducted, where the materials are housed today, and how scholars around the world access Myanmar's contribution to the world's literary tradition.

Library: A Form of Memory

A library is a form of memory. Within a research library scholars generally find primary sources to be the most important kind of memory for they contain "the facts", facts which never speak for themselves but will yield to the creative imagination of scholars. By rebuilding the context of the past, the writer can empower long forgotten voices, a pleasure that is especially acute when new access is gained to some feature of the human condition overwhelmed or marginalized by the wash of intervening events.

Cornell University Library took on a special obligation after World War II to help scholars achieve that kind of satisfaction when working on Southeast Asia. The reasons for such a commitment are a separate story, but the consequence of the University's decision to create a superior Southeast Asia Collection in all fields of knowledge (echoing the founder, Ezra Cornell) is that every conceivable kind of printed and manuscript materials has been carted, flown, posted, and occasionally sneaked into the Library to create a most potent research memory. To preserve the more fragile materials on Southeast Asia, the first curator of the Echols Collection, Giok Po Oei, an Indonesian, teamed with Cornell’s newspaper librarian, Marie Gast, to microfilm old Southeast Asian newspapers. Royalties from the sale of these microfilms now run $10-15,000 annually. Meanwhile, here in Southeast Asia, the most valuable material often could not be moved from their archives, so microfilming became a common practice among faculty & graduate students as they pursued their research.

Prominent among the students who carried back copies of their primary source materials was Nancy Florida, who set out to study the 18th and early 19th century Surakata court of eastern Java. Court records were ill-housed in their archive, and no indigenous scholars were using them, nor had they apparently been touched over the past century. Local writers told Florida that the court language was archaic, unreadable, yet when she stubbornly insisted on reading them, she found it not only easier than expected, but down-right entertaining. One manuscript led to another, until she knew she was tapping gold. With the support of Professor David Wyatt, she wrote a proposal that the National Endowment for the Humanities funded for $42,000 worth of microfilming. Cornell added $23,500 and for five years kept her shutter clicking. Reel after reel came back to the Echols Collection, despite Nancy's traumatic illness, a deep personal loss, and pinnacles of success as when she hosted her own TV show in the Indonesian language as a kind of cultural icon. Between 1980-85 she filmed 700,000 pages of manuscripts, "mostly in verse...including historical chronicles, political correspondence, and extensive court diaries, classical poetry, erotic lore, treatises on divination, language, and Islamic theology, scripts for shadow-puppet plays, and agenda for royal ceremonial displays." (From the proposal for funding to publish a descriptive catalog of the Surakarta Manuscripts. Nancy Florida, May 15, 1987.)

About the time Florida was completing her labor of love in Java, graduate students Eva Mysliwiec and Judy Ledgerwood persuaded me to undertake a comparable project in Cambodia. As with Indonesia, the project took on added dimensions as it moved from one set of manuscripts to the next. This time it took $135,000, four years, and an extensive group of Khmer and Cornell library staff to conserve originals and film over 380,000 pages of documents from the sensitive confessions in the Tuol Sleng Museum of Genocide, as well as some 700 palm leaf manuscripts in the National Library and Museum. Despite the burden of administering the Javanese and Cambodian projects, all three women completed their graduate degrees, and by using these primary sources and secondary materials already in the Cornell Library, were able to write their dissertations in Ithaca.

From 1972 through 1996 Cornell’s library maintained an exchange relationship with Myanmar‘s Universities Central Library (UCL), guided by U Thaw Kaung. During my decade as Echols Curator, Cornell shipped tons of gift books to UCL, and commencing in 1991 began microfilming rare palm leaf manuscripts from the 19th century, commensurate in value to the court records in Java. We cooperated with Northern Illinois University and the University of Michigan in this project through CORMOSEA [Association of Asian Studies Committee on Research Materials on Southeast Asia]. The Henry Luce Foundation contributed $65,000 as our main funding agent, which UCL collected some 15,000 parabeik & peiza manuscripts to preserve. By 1994 over 2,000 had been filmed on 50 reels with 50,000 exposures, or 100,000 leaves, but added funding was needed to complete the CUL work after I retired from Cornell in 1995.

Because Cornell's Conservation Department and the John M. Echols Southeast Asia Collection collaborated closely in the Cambodia project; both Departments subsequently undertook educational & training functions in Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, and Vietnam. While dozens of librarians traveled to Cornell for advanced training in preservation and library management, Chiang Mai University's Librarian Rujaya Abhakorn, himself a Cornell alumnus, sought to create a regional conservation center to upgrade librarians and archivists in managing their respective collections by building on Cornell's conservation & preservation experience in the region. The Netherlands Foreign Ministry granted $40,000 to fund a planning conference December 15-17, 1993 in Chiang Mai, which drew strong delegations from Thailand, Vietnam, and Laos, while Myanmar‘s delegation was led by Daw Ni Ni Myint.

Subsequent meetings empowered this ad hoc group to prepare a major proposal to implement recommendations:--to establish strong library & archival conservation programs in mainland Southeast Asian countries so written heritages could be removed from their endangered state. The tropical climate, traditions of neglect, and very limited funding contributed to the crisis in book and paper conservation. That Cornell would collaborate in resolving this crisis was a logical outgrowth of the cooperative effort to preserve and cherish national memories with the Universities Central Library in Myanmar.

On August 26, 1994, an implementation conference was sponsored by Chiang Mai University. Priorities set there included need to:

1] Recognize the common need to preserve indigenous cultures; 2] Create a regional center to train staff; 3] Establish an operating group to manage the center; 4] Establish with existing national funds a communications network for each library; 5] Recognize the need to report to one another regularly on training needs, to evaluate destruction from past conflicts, to evaluate building needs, and to resolve copyright issues; 6] Print both negative and positive microfilms, create master negatives for future duplication, and build secure and environmentally safe storage facilities in each country; 7] Engage central governments to satisfy their need for security, especially for negatives; 8] Determine who retains profits from microfilming manuscripts controlled by monks who grant permission to work and film within their temples. 9] Deal with the many scattered materials in monasteries suffering from deterioration, due to infestation by insects and fungus. 10] Inventory university libraries through student volunteers to list manuscripts, establish courses, develop techniques nation-wide, to engage the all national languages, to solicit sponsorship by Ministries of Education, Culture, Economic Development, Religious Affairs and Home & sanction a national center laboratory in each country.

My colleagues, John Dean, Barbara Berger, and the current University Deputy Librarian, Ann Kenney, carried out Cornell’s contribution to this project in the decade since my retirement in 1995. One measure of its success is the large collection of parabeik and peiza that has been microfilmed, cataloged and is now available for loan to scholars of other research institutions. Over 10,000 Burmese manuscripts are stored in Cornell’s archives and can be accessed by key word search on Google.

Digitizing UCL’s vast manuscript collection commenced in 2000 when the University of Washington initiated a project to transfer to CD Rom the most important historical documents, articles and monographs published in the last half of the twentieth century. The University Library donated $10,000 from their endowment, and the Henry Luce continued to contribute support to UW as well as Cornell for our ongoing work in Myanmar. Librarians Judith Henchy, University of Washington, Fe Susan Go, University of Michigan, and Daw May Kyi Win, Northern Illinois University, were leaders within CORMOSEA in sustaining support from other foundations as well as their respective universities. It has truly been a cooperative and worthy process by scholars and librarians in Myanmar and the United States.

Related Conservation Efforts

The American projects have been only part of the global effort to secure Myanmar’s literary tradition. Other Southeast Asia librarians and scholars have been crucial to developing a consortium: Dr. Trinh Kach Manh and Nguyen Van Hoi from Hanoi, Ms. Tran Thi Phuong Dung from Ho Chi Minh City, and Ha Thu Cuc from Vietnam’s National University joined in this regional collaboration, offering their own materials for preservation. Professor Rujaya Abakorn and Madame Nongkran of Chaing Mai University and Thara Kanakamani of Thailand’s National Library, Kongduen Nettawongse of the Lao National Library, met with Myanmar’s delegation led by Daw Ni Ni Myint, Professor Tun Aung Chain and U Thaw Kaung. Cambodia, Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines have also been represented.

Japan, Australia, Germany, France, the Netherlands, and the U.K. have funded parallel projects over the past three decades, some outside of Yangon in distant monasteries, other donors have assisted librarians and scholars microfilm, preserve, and move caches of materials taken from Burma during the colonial period and place them in secure archives where they continue to be processed. Digitizing is now commonplace and is revolutionizing our access to obscure texts.

UNESCO's "Memory of the World" project is a related concept, although it has not directly assisted Myanmar yet. It sees a worldwide “documentary heritage reflecting the world’s diversity of languages, peoples and cultures. It is the mirror of the world and its memory. But this memory is fragile. Every day, irreplaceable parts of this memory disappear for ever. UNESCO has launched the Memory of the World Program to guard against collective amnesia calling upon the preservation of the valuable archive holdings and library collections all over the world ensuring their survival. 1995

Defining Myanmar’s National Heritage

I conclude by illustrating the importance of these sources through two scholar’s works, both are revisions of Myanmar’s history. It became possible only because ancient and medieval primary sources-- stone rubbings as well as preserved manuscripts-- have been cataloged and made available through our combined efforts. While established historians around the world, and in this room as well, have taken issue with these re-interpretations by Professors Michael Aung Thwin and Aye Kyaw, I cite them because each empowers those concerned about Myanmar’s national heritage with evidence: one strengthens the notion of a consolidated empire beginning before the Pagan era; the other argues for the primacy of more ancient centers, Rakhine and Mon, that pre-date Pagan and endure as separate polities. In brief, here are these conflicted theses:

Aung Thwin: "The numerous struggles for the throne in Burma were all elite affairs involving princes [or pretenders] and their supporters contesting the throne. ...Ethnicity was neither implied nor explicitly stated to have been a major causal factor in any of these major events as recorded in the Burmese sources.

This premise is the axle that carries Michael Aung-Thwin's wagon of research in his re-interpretation of Burmese history. He never takes his eye off the game as he defines it: that political history is about seeking, gaining, and holding power, and that historians to date have founded their works on myths of ethnic & racial struggle. Michael believes fresh, hard evidence demonstrates that Burma is not unique in this regard, but that earlier historians interpreted the sources wrongly, either by misreading the primary sources--stone inscriptions and palm leaf manuscripts--or because of ideological and/or racial biases they failed to grasp the truth in the context of the material they were translating. Aung-Thwin contends "the evidence speak(s) for itself." (146)

Myth & History takes vigorous exception to established scholars [Phayre, Duroiselle, Luce, Harvey, Hall, Cady, Htin Aung, Pe Maung Tin, Than Tun, & Liberman] by consolidating and adding to journal articles Aung-Thwin published over the past two decades. He believes current Burmese writers are doing exactly what the classic myth-makers have done since Pagan's founding. They recreated reality to fit their moral predisposition. Since I am familiar with this recent history, I will briefly cite his argument.

"In summary, because incidents of the moment tell us little more than the events themselves, when not placed in a larger perspective, they tend to assume center stage, circumscribing the nature of the debate by excluding historical, conceptual, and cultural contexts. When these longer, broader, and deeper contexts are included, events such as the coup of 1962 (or the Mongol invasions) suddenly become less important. This allows us the option not to view those events as commensurate in size and significance to their desired (momentous) effects. It is the relative degree of importance placed on the coup of 1962, pressed by both sides, that has prevented the development of a longer, historical perspective needed to begin the process of truly understanding the current situation. Similarly with myths found earlier; they have assumed a size and significance commensurate with their desired effects, albeit influenced by, and concerned more with, academic than political issues. For a historian personally to witness this process of myth making is a fascinating experience--one that does not come often." (p 160)

Aung-Thwin also ruminates on the Saya San uprising, concluding that it was "Burma's only true peasant rebellion" (p. 202), whereas the student strikes in the 1920s, '30s, '60s, '70s and '80s, as well as U Nu's democracy period in the 1950s, were something less than the renaissance other writers have assigned, confirming his own predilection that Burma's history is, and always has been, a history of struggle for power between elites drawn from the same social class, not really struggles between races or ethnic groups for dominance.

Now consider Dr. Aye Kyaw’s thesis as presented in Oslo in 2004:

A history of Rakhine begins with King Marayu who founded the first Dhayawadi dynasty in B.C 3325-1483. The 234 kings ruled Arakan for a long period of 5108 years .By the invasion of Bodaw Maung Waine in 1784 (in the Burmese chronicle, Bodawpaya); the Rakhine kingdom came to a close. Since then Rakhine culture, tradition, and literature declined. One might wonder about the length of long period of Rakhine history. The city of Thandwe was one of the three oldest cities in the world. The other two are Damascus in Syria and Benares in India. The presence of Neolithic culture in Thandwe district supports this statement as well. In view of this long historical period of Arakan Kingdom was therefore quite possible. We need further scholarly research. ……………….

In the history of Southeast Asia, the Rakhine are the people who first received Buddhism from India. This happened due to the fact that Rakkhapura, the Kingdom of Rakhine, was adjacent to the Magadha region where Buddhism flourished. This statement is supported by the discovery in 1872 of two stone slabs, bearing the first couplet of the Buddhist text from Ye dhamma down to Maha Sramana. The first stone slab was found at Ngalonmaw village, which is near my birth village, Ywathit, and the second one was found at Byewa near the town of Thandwe. In addition, the renowned Buddha image known as the Maha Muni is the earliest image made in the Kingdom of Arakan. At present the great image is in Mandalay.

The Rakhine Buddhist king built such beautiful pagodas as the Andaw, Nandaw, and Sandaw on three hills near Thandwe town. These pagodas were erected by Rakhine king of the Vesali dynasty in the years 761 A.D., 753 A.D., and 784 A.D. Comparatively speaking, while the Rakhine Buddhist king was building these pagodas, a wealthy and powerful king of the Shailendra dynasty of Indonesia was constructing in Java the largest Buddhist temple in the world, known as Burobudur around 750 A.D. At this time, there was no existence of the Pagan dynasty, which was founded by King Anorahta in 1044 A.D., nor did the numerous pagodas seen in present Pagan exist.

Clearly these two historians are at odds with each other and both dispute mainstream historians as well. They forward contrary interpretations extracted from new primary sources. Manuscript preservation is very likely will continue to create such intellectual vigor. My own perspective on Myanmar’s contemporary life is shaped by a long sense of history. Myanmar’s manuscripts--acidic ink on paper, palm leaf and peiza--as well as paper rubbings from monasteries throughout the country and palaces in Pagan, Arakan, Toungoo, Ava, Amarapura and Mandalay are the foundation revisions of popular history, for texts to be written and read by school children, aspiring scholars, and policy makers into the distant future. Perhaps more than any single factor, they shape the identity of Myanmar, in the past, today and for all time. Those of us gathered today celebrate the process of preserving and accessing these manuscripts are blessed by this act.

APPENDICES 1] Luce Grant II, Annual Report 1992-93

In his letter of 28 December 1988, Henry Luce III apprised Cornell President Frank H. Rhodes that a four-year grant of $360,000 has been awarded to support and extends the university's long-term commitment to Southeast Asian Studies, with a focus on library development. In accordance with the Luce Foundation's requirements, we submit herewith our final narrative account summarizing the development of each of the items funded, accompanied by a financial statement of the use made of these funds.

Library Development

All five library projects funded by this grant have been completed:

(l) The Great Collections Project, jointly funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Luce Grant, met its quota of 4,000 volumes, came in under budget, and enabled us to film an additional 700 volumes, as noted last year. Since then, because of the success of that project, NEH has extended the Project to allow filming of an additional 10,000 Southeast Asian volumes. This project will be completed in 1996 with an estimated 15,000 Southeast Asian volumes preserved on 35 mm. microfilm. In addition, we have contributed to, and acquired copies of, illusive serial and newspaper runs filmed by librarians at Yale, Berkeley, and Hawaii with their Luce funds. These collaborative projects have enhanced access by scholars, preserved scarce books, and saved space where the hard copies have been replaced by film. Cornell has provided over 325 reels of this film, through SEAM, to the Central Research Library in Chicago.

(2) We also completed microfilming brittle palm leaf manuscripts in Cambodia (over 700) as well as some 400,000 pages of confessions and rare documents in the Tuol Sleng Museum of Genocide. All of this material had to be sorted, reassembled, filmed, and stored in acid-free archive boxes fabricated by our Cambodian staff using materials flown to Phnom Penh from Cornell. The target information preceding each item on the film reel was entered on computer and constitutes a preliminary catalog of these unique Khmer materials. The Christopher Reynolds Foundation provided over $75,000, and we used approximately $50,000 in Luce funds, with four other donors contributed $6,000 to complete our four year project in Phnom Penh. An archival negative of all this 35 mm. film is stored in the National Underground archive in Pennsylvania, a copy negative is retained in the Cornell Library pending creation of an appropriate film archive in Cambodia, and a positive copy was sent to the Museum of Genocide in Cambodia. This was an extremely demanding project, with numerous crises and unexpected costs, however we expect the long-term value of these materials to Cambodian writers and scholars will be worth the cost and effort.

In Burma (Myanmar), as noted last year with the collaboration of Northern Illinois University and the University of Michigan, we have purchased $20,000 worth of camera and copy equipment to launch this substantial preservation project. Nearly 3,000 brittle palm leaf manuscripts from the 19th and late 18th century have been filmed and sent to the U.S. from Rangoon. U Thaw Kaung, our project director who is also head of the Universities Central Library, estimates 12,000 manuscripts remain to be filmed. We expect he will film an additional 3,000 this year, which will be paid for by Luce funds retained by Northern Illinois University. Cornell and the University of Michigan, have expended their share of Luce funds dedicated to this project. We are seeking added funds to complete this project.

(3) We purchased a Canon Bubble-jet printer and an IBM-PC for the Echols Collection office at Cornell, plus a portable Macintosh for use in Cambodia, as well as a high quality portable printer. This equipment has served us well over the past three years and is presently used at Cornell in the Collection.

(4) The conversion of most Burmese, Lao, and Khmer cataloging to our on-line computer is complete, while over two-thirds of our very large Thai holdings have also been converted. An estimated 26,000 entries were loaded on-line with the Luce funding, and the process is ongoing through the support of the NEH preservation project and internal Cornell funding. While non-Roman orthographies are a continuing challenge, Cornell remains committed to cataloging all current acquisitions in Southeast Asian languages.

(5) Six bibliographic guides were written by graduate students to assist scholars in using our substantial collections. Two dealt with Vietnam, two with Indonesia, and one each on the Philippines and Malaysia.

As noted last year, Cornell provided several experts for the United Nations' effort in Cambodia. Judy Ledgerwood, our first project director in Cambodia, was joined by John Marston, who replaced her, in the UNTAC headquarters to write major position papers for Mr. Akashi, the head of all UN activities in Cambodia. Reasey Poch replaced John Marston, but left after three months due to the insecurities he felt as a Cambodian-American in Phnom Penh. Lya Badgley completed the project as director and was able to motivate the staff to film over 120 reels (11,000 feet, 1,000,000 exposures) in the last eight months, as much as was filmed in the previous three years. Their prior experience, fear of the upcoming elections, and salary incentives seem to have accounted for this spurt in productivity.

While the Mac portable computer was returned to Cornell, the camera in Phnom Penh was sold to pay for final costs. The generator and air conditioner was given to the Museum of Genocide, as were the hundreds of archival boxes for storing the confessions, and a copy of the 213 reels of microfilm dealing with Museum materials.

2] National Resource Center Proposal 1994-97

The John M. Echols Collection in Cornell's Kroch Library is the world's largest and most comprehensive collection on Southeast Asia. Its holdings consist of a half-million volumes in more than 60 languages. As of 30 June 1993, these consisted of 230,080 titles of books (133,643 in vernacular languages and 96,437 in western or other languages), 20,506 periodical titles and 848 newspaper subscriptions. The remaining volumes are on microforms and video or audio cassettes, many of which are awaiting cataloging. An enumeration of the holdings in the languages of Southeast Asia appears on the following page. Manuscript and archival material exceed 350 cubic feet, which includes large photographic collections such as the life works of Hedda Morrison and Douwes Dekker. Some 12,000 volumes of our most valuable or politically sensitive books and periodicals are housed in our Asia Rare location.

Over the past 43 years the Collection has been developed comprehensively for the humanities and social sciences, with substantial coverage in the physical sciences and public health as well. Business publications, government documents, and dissertations in all fields are also well represented. Indonesian, Thai, Vietnamese, Burmese and Cambodian-language titles constitute the largest vernacular holdings outside of these countries, while our collections on Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, Laos, and Brunei are only rarely matched elsewhere. In addition to historical and literary works, we have an extensive collection of legal publications and documents, popular novels, and political materials. The vast Indonesian resources are uniquely strong in the island cultures and literatures in Bahasa Indonesian published between the two world wars, during the Japanese occupation, and for the period of the Revolution (1945-49) up to the present, as well as colonial materials published in Dutch and Jawi during the 19th century.

The Collection also includes fragile palm leaf manuscripts in Javanese, Khmer, Burmese, Shan, and Thai. This format was pervasive in Southeast Asia before the colonial era. Cornell began to microfilm Javanese manuscripts thirteen years ago as a preservation project and now has more than 500,000 leaves on film. In a related effort we are collaborating with Dutch and Balinese scholars in transcribing Balinese palm leaf manuscripts on paper. This project began early in the 1970's and we continue adding to the 30 cubic feet of typewritten materials from the Kirtya archive in Bali.

Henry Luce and Christopher Reynolds Foundation grants of $135,000 enabled us to complete preservation filming in Phnom Penh of all confessions and related serials and documents (over 450,000 pages) in the Tuol Sleng Museum of Genocide, as well as 700 palm leaf manuscripts in three different libraries. In Myanmar, U Thaw Kaung directs a similar project, funded by an additional $65,000 in Luce grants to Cornell, Northern Illinois University, and the University of Michigan to film their 15,000 palm leaf manuscript collection. Cornell has also worked with other Southeast Asia libraries, and the National Library in Hanoi, in completing the first Vietnamese national union catalog. And in collaboration with the director of the Chiang Mai University Library, M.R.Rujaya Abhakorn, Cornell’s Conservation Librarian, John Dean, and the Echols Curator, John Badgley, are establishing a regional conservation program to train Vietnamese, Cambodian, Laotian, and Burmese librarians in building conservation programs in their respective countries. This project was initially funded by a $40,000 grant from the Netherlands foreign ministry, following visitations by Badgley and Dean, for a planning conference December 16-18, 1993 in Chiang Mai.

Our Vietnam holdings include both colonial and contemporary Vietnam, and feature materials with French, American, Chinese and Vietnamese perspectives on the successive wars of liberation. Some 15,000 of our fragile books and pamphlets on Cambodia and Vietnam (as well as Burma, Indonesia, and Thailand), are being microfilmed and cataloged on-line through four successive matching grants in excess of $1 million from the National Endowment for the Humanities; while a separate contract with University Microfilms, Inc. (UMI), has enabled us to preserve on film another 7,000 titles of Vietnam war-related literature. All of these materials are now available for loan or purchase by other U.S. libraries, as well as scholars and research libraries around the world.

Other Indochina and Vietnam holdings include the papers of Francois-Jules Harmand (1845-1921), a French physician, natural scientist, and diplomat, which contain extensive diplomatic, archeological, botanical, and ethnographic information; the records of a governor of Cochin-China, as well as documents from the French rule of southern Vietnam (1887-1938), and extensive early pictorial materials, including Indochinese postcards (1902-1960) and an album of "photographies d'un voyage en Indochine et en Egypte, 1872-1874". Other important Vietnamese collections include Paul Hartmann's (1890-1960), which has many photographs, books, and magazine illustrations; and the personal papers of Gaston Liebert (1867-1929), a French naval officer and foreign ministry official, with unique reports about early Vietnamese nationalists, and the conflict between China and Tonkin at the end of the century.

The library's extensive documentation of the Vietnam War includes the records of the International War Crimes Tribunal (1967); the collected papers of the Berrigan brothers and the Vietnam War Veterans Association; and some 10,000 U.S. government documents on the origins of the Vietnam War. More than 300 reels of microfilmed government documents cover the post-World War II years up to 1975. Also relevant to research on the Vietnam War are vast numbers of memoirs, novels, and commentaries in French, English and Vietnamese, many of which UMI has microfilmed.

It is not surprising that our manuscript materials are also strong on the Philippines, as both Cornell and the U.S. have had an enduring connection. The papers of Jacob Gould Schurman, an early President of Cornell, contain his reports as chairman of the Philippine Commission (1899-1903), plus considerable collateral material. Another substantial collection of documents from the post-World War II period detail special relationships between Cornell faculty, especially from the Agriculture College, and numerous Philippine research and educational institutions. Over 80 tenured Cornell faculty worked there between 1950 and 1990; as a result many young Philippine scholars took degrees from Cornell and carried out research on campus. Both the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations funded these programs, supplementing the substantial public support from successive U.S. foreign aid agencies (ICA, ECA, MSA, and AID).

Extensive holdings are lodged in other special collections besides Echols, particularly the Rare, Manuscript, and Archives collections in the Kroch Library. For example, both academic and public policy questions related to Southeast Asia are well represented in the personal papers of rural sociologist and development specialist Milton Leonard Barnett, petroleum geologist Robert Jackson Belknap, art historian Alexander Brown Griswold, anthropologist Lauriston Sharp, economic consultant Robert R. Nathan, agricultural consultant Karl Douglas Butler, and geographer Karl Josef Pelzer. Postwar politics are covered by the Helen Lamb Lamont papers (1947-1975), the papers of journalist Donald Kirk (1965-1988), and the Thompson-Adloff collection on Southeast Asia (1950-1979). Interesting holdings on Burma include papers of Emily Chubbock Judson (1817-1854), an early missionary; 67 microfilm reels of American Baptist Mission's records from Burma (1825-1948), and the papers of James Marshall McHugh (1899-1966), a diplomat and naval officer who traveled the Burma Road in 1938, and also reported extensively on China and the early phase of the Vietnamese conflict. The Cambodian holocaust is represented in tape recordings of Elizabeth Becker's interviews with Pol Pot and Ieng Thirith (1978), David Hawk's copies of some 4,000 photographs in the Museum of Genocide, and some 207 reels of film from the Museum's archived confessions.

Materials on Southeast Asia are also scattered through most other Cornell University Libraries. For example, botanical and horticultural subjects in English are in the Agricultural College's Mann Library, while several hundred videos are in the Southeast Asia's Kahin Center and thousands of audio and video tapes are in the Music Department's Lincoln Hall Library. Many law titles and periodicals are in the Annabel Taylor Law School Library, art and architecture materials are in the Sibley Hall Library. Many geology titles on Southeast Asia are in the Carpenter Engineering Library.

Approximately half of the Echols Collection resources are listed in two publications: a seven-volume Cornell University Libraries Southeast Asia Catalog, published by G.K. Hall in 1976, detailing the complete holdings as of that date, and a three-volume First Supplement released by the same publisher in 1983. Our monthly Accessions List, now in its thirty third year, is compiled under the Curator's direction and is distributed to a wide external readership. About 80% of the Collection's titles are now on-line and accessible by electronic means throughout the world. This accessibility has substantially increased our number of inter-library loans, in recent years over a fifth of all loans from Cornell were for Echols materials, although we constitute only 7% of Cornell's entire library.

The Echols Collection's active serials titles exceed 4,800, while there are approximately 52,000 inactive newspapers and serials titles. The Echols Collection is heavily used not only by Cornell students and faculty, but also by students and scholars from other American and foreign universities. Over 300 external scholars visited between 1990 -1993. Access to the Collection was a magnet for both Luce and Rockefeller Faculty Fellows, as well as for some 280 SEASSI students enrolled in the 1990-91 summer language programs. A $225,000 four-year grant from the Rockefeller Foundation has supported two awards annually since 1990 for Residency Fellows in the Humanities; these are fellowships open to scholars worldwide to use the Echols Collection in completing their research monographs on Southeast Asian topics. Cornell levies no charge for use of materials internally, but has a $100 annual fee for external borrowing or $40 for a semester.

Many students and off-campus patrons use the beautiful new Kroch Library, and increasingly depend on our electronic mail and fax services for reference aid. As of September 1, 1993, remote access is available to Cornell’s five million cataloged titles while about 1.5 million titles remain to be loaded on-line. Faculty, students, and users around the world can access our NOTIS system via internet services, and do so 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Dr. John H. Badgley, Curator, is director of the Echols Collection. He also is Adjunct Associate Professor of Asian Studies in recognition of his teaching and research activities. Allen J. Riedy is Assistant Curator and Southeast Asia Librarian as well as director of the Leslie R. Sevringhaus Reading Room, which is administered half-time by Carol Atkinson. Margarite Crawford is the Collection's administrative supervisor and, with Riedy and Atkinson, supervises some 38 student employees in the Collection and reading room. Barbara Berger, a preservation librarian, supervises three assistants in carrying out the NEH microfilm project, while four catalogers, a maps librarian, two serial assistants, and several acquisitions librarians process the newly acquired Echols material. Their combined salaries and benefits exceed $490,000 in the 1993 academic year.

Acquisition funds budgeted for 1993-94 total $170,000 which includes $20,000 in National Resource Center funds, an additional $10,000 from other SEAP funds, and $13,000 in Echols royalty income, $20,000 in direct gifts and library endowment earnings, and $107,000 provided by the university administration. Cornell is a member of the Overseas Operations Program (OVOP), a cooperative endeavor with 21 participating libraries operated by the Library of Congress, which acquires materials from Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and Brunei. Cornell's payment for these materials in 1993-4 is about $55,000. They include 61 subject areas including humanities, social sciences, and agricultural, technical, and scientific materials that are routinely transferred to other Cornell libraries serving these fields. The Echols Collection retains all vernacular language materials, and most social science and humanities titles. Rapid increases in indigenous publishing and in the cost of periodicals within the region, as well as the pending closure of the APO system which has handled our shipments at subsidized government rates since the OVOP program began early in the 1960s, all point to an urgent need for increased acquisitions funds. Since 1989 we have reduced our comprehensive collecting from 78 to 61 subject areas to meet budget constraints, so we are including an annual increase of $5,000 for Southeast Asia acquisitions in the NRC budget. This will supplement other sources in maintaining the Echols Collection as an internationally acknowledged resource for scholars and the general public. In spring 1989, the Henry Luce Foundation awarded a $360,000 four-year grant to SEAP for library development.

Five inter-related projects have been or are about to be completed: 1) preservation microfilming and electronic conversion of 15,000 brittle and highly acidic vernacular titles in the Echols Collection, the Luce funds provided match for the massive NEH funded Great Collections Project; 2) purchase of computer and camera equipment for our field operations in Cambodia and Burma; 3) creation of eight bibliographic guides by graduate students for select Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Philippine holdings; 4) catalog computerization of 20,000 Indonesian, Thai, Lao, Tagalog, and Burmese titles; and, 5) acquisition and preservation microfilming of Cambodian and Burmese manuscript materials. All were completed by July 1993 but for the NEH project and the Burmese preservation work, which will continue through 1994. On August 23, 1992 Cornell University opened the splendid underground $25 million Carl A. Kroch Library. In the previous month we moved over a million volumes of the South, East, and Southeast Asia Collections, in addition to some 10,000 boxes of archival material and the entire Rare, Icelandic, and History of Science special collections. Many Southeast Asia materials formerly housed in a remote annex library were re-integrated in the Echols Collection. Staff office space was more than doubled, and on October 2, 1992 the beautiful Leslie R. Severinghaus Asian Reading Room opened, thanks to a $1 million gift from Henry Luce family in honor of his uncle. Carl Kroch contributed $10 million to the construction of this largest Asian library in the United States.

The Echols Collections maintains a very active exchange of materials with libraries in Southeast Asia, thanks largely to annual acquisitions journeys by Badgley and Riedy through the region. Supervision of the preservation projects and expanding collaboration with Southeast Asia programs in Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia requires close linkages with the main libraries in each country. In addition to the curatorial trips, Cornell's Vietnamese cataloger, Yen Bui, has traveled three times since 1990 to train librarians in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi in U.S. computer cataloging methods, with support from the Cornell University Library and the Echols Collection. The unique professional relationships established by these visitations are crucial to keeping our high quality collection vital and up-to-date. 3] Burmese manuscripts websites If one Googles 'parabeik' and 'peiza' many references appear, some of which are links to Cornell's work on the material described in this paper. Thirty of the 351 links illustrate the richness of these manuscripts as sources for many features of Burmese culture, and also reveal the range of locations where they are housed.

www.seasite.niu.edu/Burmese/PictureGallery/ Writing Materials/parabeik. Cornell University Department of Preservation and Conservation. Conservation and Stabilization of Palm Leaf and Parabeik Manuscripts.

www.library.cornell.edu/preservation/manual/mg8a.html - 25k Parabeik Manuscripts Document Attributes. Parabeik Manuscripts. Document Attributes. ... Paper folded in a vertical accordion-way.Most of the parabeik are white, folded, rare manuscripts. www.library.cornell.edu/preservation/parabaik/pdocu.htm - 4k - Supplemental Result - Cached - Similar pages [More results from www.library.cornell.edu ]

www.cpamedia.com/parabaik/ - 10k - Dec 27, 2005 CPAmedia.com: Parabeik -- monthly roundup of news about the Asian ... Parabeik, CPAmedia's monthly email newsletter, brings you up-to-date information on travel related news in Asia… Conservation: Parabeik or Concertina manuscripts Parabeik manuscripts, common to Burma, Cambodia, Laos, and Thailand are constructed from crude, strong paper made of bamboo, bark, straw, or leaf fiber,...

www.librarypreservation.org/ preservation/indigenous2.htm - 22k - Similar pages Survey on Conservation of Asian Documents. Materials - Palm-leaf ... Materials PALM-LEAF and PARABAIK.Bibliography and notes compiled with assistance from Alison McKay

This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it Agrawal, Om Prakash. ...

www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/scad/materials/mat-palmleaf.htm - 12k - Similar pages

cgi.ebay.ca/SE-Asia-Cambodian-Khmer-Buddhist-Parab... Introduction. Many valuable documents recorded on Parabaik are vanishing at every moment. Furthermore, when Parabaik are used as historical source materials,.. taweb.aichi-u.ac.jp/DMSEH/Introduction.html - 6k - Dec 26, 2005 - Cached -Documents of Myanmar Socio-Economic History The Committee for Constructing a Database of Myanmar Parabaik Manuscripts in Aichi University, Toyohashi, Aichi, JAPAN 2002…

taweb.aichi-u.ac.jp/DMSEH/ - 3k - Cached - Similar pages parabeik, Parabaiks are also classified into two main groups by color, black parabaiks and white parabaiks. The black parabaiks were used ...

www.pnm.my/motw/myanmar/parabaik.htm - 1k - Supplemental Result - Cached -Find in a Library: Parabaik and megabyte: measuring progress in ... Parabaik and megabyte: measuring progress in library development in South East Asia : papers presented at two workshops during the 65th IFLA General ...

www.worldcatlibraries.org/wcpa/ top3mset/0591c5e86b1b3710a19afeb4da09e526.html - [PDF] The Narrative Murals of Tilokaguru Cave-Temple A Reassessment ... File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - View as HTML decision to explore the painting styles of parabaik (illustrated, ... She held the theories that the painting styles of the parabaik ... soas.ac.uk/burma/3.2files/01Green.pdf - Similar pages Amazon.co.uk: Parabaik and megabyte: measuring progress in library ...Parabaik and megabyte: measuring progress in library development in South East Asia: Papers presented at two workshops during the 65th IFLA General ... www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0953243982 - 24k - Cached –Collecting Cultures - Essays - Burmese Court-Style Painting on Silk The parabaik style was usually reserved for court documents and illustrations. Paper made from bamboo pulp was the most common medium, www.denison.edu/artgallery/colcult/essays/palmer.html - 6k - Cached -Ethnikan - Livre à tatouage PARABAIK. Laque et papier recueil manuscrit état Shan Birmanie celui-ci est exceptionnel par la clarté des représentations ... ethnikan.com/produit.php?idprod=393 - 10k - Supplemental Result - Cached -Ethnikan - Ancien livre à tatouage PARABAIK III. Laque et papier recueil manuscrit état Shan Birmanie ces ouvrages étaient rédigés par ethnikan.com/produit.php?idcat=& idscat=6&idprod=392&page=3 - 10k UAP Publications - Universal Availability of Publications Core Parabaik and Megabyte: Measuring Progress in Library Development in South East Asia: Edited by Sara Gould 2000: ISBN 0 9532 4398 2: Price £5.00: Papers ... www.ifla.org/VI/2/pubs.htm - 9k - Cached - Similar pages A Unique Culture, A Unique People Although the traditional palm-leaf manuscript and the parabaik are well preserved in government owned institutions like the University Central Library, ... www.myanmar.com/gov/perspec/2004/1-2004/uni.htm - 27k - Cached - Bo Bo Aung Upon examining what he had found, it turned out to be a Kyeni Parabaik ... "Yes, I have seen the Sayadaw reading this copper parabaik", replied the other. ... www.myaing.com/weizzar/BoBoAung.htm - 20k - Cached - The New Light of Myanmar Then, the bronze Parabaik bearing Maha Samaya Sutta was conveyed round the Buddha Image. Next, the Secretary-1 enshrined the bronze Parabaik bearing Maha www.myanmar.gov.mm/NLM-2002/enlm/Feb10.htm - 54k - Cached - Asian Master Piece, Parabaik Burmese folding book, Kon Baung Asian Master Piece, Parabaik Burmese folding book, Kon Baung period 18th century. ... www.asian-master-piece.com/oldmanus.html - 11k - Supplemental Result -Asian Master Piece, antique paintings, burmese temple paintings Parabaik w. royal dancing scenes 18 pages, Burma, 18th century Parabaik w life of Buddha paintings, more than 60 pages, contemporary ... www.asian-master-piece.com/bookmanus.html -More results from www.asian-master-piece.com Latest Acquisitions page title, Burmese astrological manuscript [PARABAIK]. language, in Burmese manuscript on paper ... title, Burmese folding manuscript [PARABAIK] ... www.bouwmanbooks.com/latest_acquisitions.php - 17k - Cached - He also made him self thoroughly acquainted with parabaik paintings from the…In 1949 a parabaik with his illustrations of Naymizat was acquired from a www.myanmar.gov.mm/Perspective/persp1996/8-96/ROY.htm - 7k - More results from www.myanmar.gov.mm [PDF] 1 A Preliminary Survey of Burmese Manuscripts in Great Britain and File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - View as HTML 1 parabaik with scenes from the life of the Buddha. 1 Dasanipata Jataka in Burmese, 1 parabaik with misc. writings. 1 coll. of Burmese letters ... soas.ac.uk/burma/ 2.1%20pdf%20files/2.1%2002%20Frasch.pdf - Travel To Myanmar .com On display are also a Parabaik in U Ponnya's hand-writing and various kinds of Parabaik and also palm-leaf writings. www.traveltomyanmar.com/in_sale.htm - 25k - Cached -21st century in Myanmar Naing Gan There are two kinds of parabaik, white and black with each kind used for a different purpose. The white parabaik which is rarer than the black, ... www.myanmar.com/ACOCI/CULTURE/2002/21stCentury.html - 37k-More results from www.myanmar.com [PDF] PLACES TO VISIT IN MYANMAR Sa-Le Monastery decorated with handicrafts. On display are also a parabaik in U Ponnya's hand-writing and various kinds of parabaik. and also palm-leaf writings. ... www.myanmar-embassy-tokyo.net/ Culture/Sa-Le_Monastery.[PDF] RAJADHAMMASANGAHA. This edition has been made on the basis of the parabaik volumes in the Barnard..There are three parabaik volumes of the Rajadhammasangaha in the National www.ibiblio.org/obl/docs/THE_RAJADHAMMASANGAHA.pdf - Special Collections: Palm Leaf Manuscripts [Parabaik]. Burmese and Pali. Small black paper note book with plain wood cover. This parabaik is one of fourteen manuscripts that make up the ... www.niulib.niu.edu/rbsc/palmleaf.htm - 24k -The New Light of Myanmar (Sunday, 10 February, 2002)(1/2)... of Supreme Commander of Royal Thai Armed Forces and party 2. Cleansing of Lawka Chantha Abhaya Labha Muni Image, enshrinement of bronze Parabaik bearing Maha ... www.burmalibrary.org/NLM/archives/2002-02/msg00011.html - 24k -On display are also a parabaik in U Ponnya's hand-writing and various kinds of parabaik and also palm-leaf writings. ... www.mrtv3.net.mm/pages/sale.html - 14k -Collections-OIOC-Oriental Languages-Burmese Collections The majority of the manuscripts are written on palm leaf, but there are also many paper folding books (parabaik), and texts written on materials such as ... www.bl.uk/collections/burmese.html - 19k - Burmese Illuminated Manuscript Page 19th C. Burmese Painted Parabaik Page. ... This is a page from a Parabaik still showing the fold between the painting and the written part. ... www.nomadsjourney.com/Asia/22084.html - 9k - Item Code: Parabaik Country: Myanmar Age: 18 th C. Size: W 44 x L 875 cm A folding-book or 'parabaik' , made of specially prepared rice ... eastern-discoveries.com/prod_detail.asp?cat id=9&subcat_id=26&prod_id=406&cat_name=&subca... CPAmedia.com: The Asia Experts. Parabaik Zingala Nat holding a Parabaik. Click here for CPAmedia's newsletter CPAmedia's newsletter. Click for more details. ... www.cpamedia.com/ - 16k - Dec 26, 2005 - [ More results from www.cpamedia.com ] www.tufs.ac.jp/21coe/area/eng/idg/ - 7k - C-DATS | Tokyo University of Foreign Studies ... such as palm leaf manuscripts and folded paper parchment (parabaik),with the cooperation and collaboration of overseas research institutions. ... Rarebookreview - the news magazine for the book world Antique Thai cabinets hold the palm leaf and mulberry parabaik sets. They're just not sure what stories the manuscripts tell. Protected traditional costumes www.rarebookreview.com/index. php?nav=features&featureID=35 - 20k - the news magazine for the book world ... former director of Thailand's National Library is quietly transcribing a beautiful collection of Thai, Burmese and Khmer palm leaf and parabaik manuscripts. ... www.rarebookreview.com/index.php?nav=features& featureID=35&PHPSESSID=bd9ab3c57751f8cf3a1545ee3bf29774 - 17k -Survey on Conservation of Asian Documents • PALM-LEAF and PARABAIK. Bibliography and notes compiled with assistance from Alison McKay This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it Agrawal, Om Prakash. ... www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/scad/bibliography/bib-palmleaf.htm - 13k -