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History
Berkeley’s vast collection of East Asian manuscripts and artifacts -- assembled over the past century -- is housed in this library, the first freestanding structure at a U.S. university erected solely for East Asian collections. The library is home to more than 900,000 volumes, primarily in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean, plus thousands of manuscripts, rubbings, and the largest and most valuable collection of historic Japanese maps outside of Japan. It is also the largest U.S. academic repository of materials on the People's Republic of China. It is named for the late Cornelius Vander Starr, an insurance pioneer with a deep interest in Asia and a major donor to the building fund for the library.
