China Resources at the Yale Divinity Library

Transcription

1 China Resources at the Yale Divinity Library This paper identifies the resources available for the study of Christianity in China located at the Yale Divinity Library. The paper has two purposes. First, as a way of inviting you to visit the Yale Divinity Library and to make use of its many resources. Secondly, to present Yale Divinity Library as a case study of how American libraries organize and provide access to library and archival resources more generally. It is my hope that this case study will be of use to us as we consider together the theme of our conference: developing the tools of scholarship for the study of Christianity in China. The Yale Divinity Library is located at the Yale Divinity School, which is one of Yale University s professional schools. Yale University was founded in 1701 to prepare leaders for the church and civil state. The Yale Divinity School was founded in 1822, and was housed in two different locations prior to 1932 when it was moved to its current location in the Sterling Divinity Quadrangle, about 1.5 kilometers from the center of Yale s campus. Before this move, the central library provided library services for the Divinity School. The administration recognized that, at its new location, the Divinity School would need to have its own library for the convenience of the faculty and students. Accordingly, three small collections that had been housed at the old Divinity Quadrangle were brought together to form the Yale Divinity Library. These three libraries were the Trowbridge Reference Library, the Sneath Library of Religious Education, and the Day Missions Library. Today the Yale Divinity Library houses Yale s primary research collection for the study of Christianity. The Divinity Library reports to the Yale University Library. While the Divinity School is our primary constituency, we are responsible for providing support to all Yale faculty and students in our collecting area. Yale University has the fourth largest library collection in the United States, after the Library of Congress, Harvard University Library, and New York Public Library. There are more than twelve million volumes in Yale s collections, of which the Divinity Library holds approximately 500,000. The Divinity Library also houses more than 3,500 linear feet of archival and manuscript material and more than 250,000 pieces of microform, including copies of monographs and serials, along with copies of archival collections from other repositories.

2 2 The Day Missions Collection is named for George Edward Day, who was a professor of Hebrew literature at Yale Divinity School during the last half of the nineteenth century. After his retirement he and his wife, Olivia Hotchkiss Day, began to build a collection of books and serials that could be used to train students to become missionaries. He donated this collection to Yale Divinity School in 1892, along with an endowment to support the collection. By 1932 there were more than 20,000 volumes in the Day Missions Library, accounting for more than two thirds of the entire Divinity Library collection at the time. The Divinity Library continues to build this collection aggressively. The collection is no longer used to train missionaries, but, rather, is focused on the history of the Christian missionary enterprise and the churches the missionaries established. The Divinity Library s manuscript and archival collections trace their origin to the China Records Project. This Project was initiated in 1968 by the National Council of Churches to ensure the preservation of the personal papers of former missionaries to China. Raymond Morris, the first Director of the Yale Divinity Library, was the person in charge of the Project. When he retired in 1972 after forty years as Divinity Librarian, Mr. Morris began to spend full time on the China Records Project, traveling across the United States to find former missionaries to China. He encouraged them to deposit their personal papers with an institutional archive, and, if they did not have another place, invited them to send their papers to Yale. In all we have now received the records of more than 350 former China missionaries. We continue to receive materials even now, as the children of those missionaries dispose of their parents effects. The Day Missions Collection now includes materials in a wide variety of formats: books, periodicals, report literature, pamphlets, institutional archives, and personal papers. Approximately one fourth of our manuscript and archival collections are housed on site, with the rest in off-site storage. Approximately half of our bound volumes are also shelved off-site. Materials shelved off-site can be retrieved within twenty-four hours. Next, a few words on how researchers find China documentation at Yale and elsewhere. For published materials and collection-level records of primary resources, the place to start is with online library catalogs, most of which can now be searched on the

3 3 worldwide web. Yale s online catalog, Orbis ( includes records for material in the Day Missions Collection, along with the records for Yale s other libraries. The Library of Congress catalog is another good resource, because of their extensive documentation. WorldCat is the Online Computer Library Center s (OCLC) online union catalog; that is, it is a database of more than 50 million records of books and other materials held in thousands of academic, public, special, and national libraries around the world. WorldCat is available through subscription from OCLC. Archival finding aids are increasingly available electronically, as well. The Yale Finding Aid Database ( includes records for all of Yale s archival repositories, including the Divinity Library. ArchiveGrid is an important destination for searching through historical documents, personal papers, and family histories held in archives around the world. Thousands of libraries, museums, and archives have contributed nearly a million collection descriptions to ArchiveGrid. Researchers searching ArchiveGrid can learn about the many items in each of these collections, contact archives to arrange visits, and order copies. ArchiveGrid is available by subscription from the Research Libraries Group. Mundus ( is a gateway to missionary collections in Great Britain, and is available without charge. Archival materials can generally be divided into two categories: personal papers and institutional archives. The Day Missions Collection includes the personal papers of American and British missionaries, and contains such materials as letters, diaries, published and unpublished writings, photographs, and materials that the missionaries collected in their travels. The Day Collection also includes the official archives of several organizations that worked in China prior to The raw material for historical research includes a variety of types of information. Personal letters, diaries, papers, and memorabilia provide the most personal documentation. The next level includes official letters, reports, and financial information relating to the agencies for which the missionaries worked. Next come the periodicals, pamphlets, and reports distributed by those agencies. The fourth level includes newspaper accounts and other records that show outside reactions to the mission

4 4 agencies work. Finally come written narratives and secondary literature that were written later, often based on the earlier layers of information. Different types of records reveal different aspects of the same story. Diaries and personal letters that were written to family members and friends are likely to contain more introspective and unguarded reflection, as well as the details of everyday life. When communicating with a mission board, the missionary might offer more specific and thorough information, but the information in these letters and reports are also more likely to be politically correct. Periodicals, brochures, and reports prepared for distribution to the general public and financial supporters were designed to garner support for the mission. Newspapers and reports not produced by the mission agency offer an outside perspective. An example of a collection of personal papers is that of Elijah Bridgman, who was the first American missionary to China, arriving in Guangdong in The China Records Project includes his and his wife s diaries from , 1856, and Diaries of missionaries provide valuable historical insight and factual information about political events, economic conditions, social issues, and local practices. Perhaps more so than diplomatic, military, or business personnel stationed overseas, missionaries were able to walk freely among the common people and observe everyday events. Many then recorded their observations in their personal journals and letters to their families and friends back home. Among the institutional archives held at Yale Divinity Library are those of the United Board for Christian Higher Education in Asia and the Border Service Department of the Church of Christ in China. The United Board was a support agency for thirteen colleges and universities established by Protestant mission agencies, including Yenching University, West China Union University, and the University of Nanjing. The Border Service Department was a church agency that worked among ethnic minority groups in the western part of China. Archival resources are used by scholars not only to investigate the history of missions and of the churches they established, but they are also useful for the light the records shed on many historical events, issues, and topics, such as architecture, conflicts,

5 5 natural disasters, the economy and daily life, education, the environment, health care, minority groups, and recreation. Next I want to demonstrate how one finds archival material in the Yale Divinity Library Special Collections. The gateway to YDL Special Collections is found at Here one can find online guides to the collection, including alphabetical listings of personal papers and institutional archives. The easiest way to find specific information is by consulting the Finding Aid Database. Enter the desired search terms in the dialogue box and press submit. The database will identify all the finding aids that contain the search terms. The researcher must then execute the search again within the finding aid. Once relevant material is identified, the researcher may contact the Divinity Library to request a copy. While most documents are not available in digital form as yet, the Yale Divinity Library has undertaken a number of projects to create online digital content, mostly of visual material. These include: The China Christian Colleges and Universities Image Database The ATLA Cooperative Digital Resources Initiative The Internet Mission Photography Archive The China Christian Colleges and Universities Image Database ( provides detailed descriptions of photographs and films held in the archives of the United Board for Christian Higher Education in Asia and the Lignan University Board of Trustees. It also includes a growing number of digital images of photographs found in those archives. Here is a photograph of famine relief efforts found in this database. The Cooperative Digital Resources Initiative ( is a collaborative effort by theological libraries sponsored by the American Theological Library Association and the Association of Theological Schools. The database includes a wide variety of images, reflecting the interests of the participating libraries. Yale Divinity Library contributed 300 maps and charts documenting the history of Christian missions. For example, here is a map showing the regional distribution of various Protestant mission agencies in China in And here is a map showing the location of mission stations in Fujian.

6 6 Yale is one of six repositories participating in the Internet Mission Photography Archive ( The historical images in the Internet Mission Photography Archive come from Protestant and Catholic missionary collections held at a number of centers in Britain, continental Europe, and North America. The photographs record missionary endeavors and reflect the missionaries experience of communities and environments abroad. There are examples of the physical influence the mission presence brought mission compounds, church and school buildings as well as examples of the cultural impact of mission teaching and Western influence, including schools and training programs, Christian practices, and Western technology and fashions. The pictures document indigenous peoples' responses to missions and the history of indigenous churches that are often now a major force in society. They also offer views of landscapes, of cities, and of towns before and in the early stages of modern development. As of March 2007 there were 6,229 images of missionary activity in China. Another valuable resource is the Ricci 21 st Century Roundtable on the History of Christianity in China, a database sponsored by the Ricci Institute at the University of San Francisco. It includes extensive information about agencies and individuals active in China. It has an extensive bibliography on Christianity in China, and identifies archival resources, based on Archie Crouch s guide, Christianity in China: a Scholars Guide to Resources in the Libraries and Archives of the United States (Armonk, N.Y. M.E. Sharpe,1989). Finally, a few words about the Kenneth Scott Latourette Initiative for the Documentation of World Christianity. Kenneth Scott Latourette was a China scholar who served as a professor of missions at Yale Divinity School in the middle of the last century. He is best known for his seven-volume History of the Expansion of Christianity. When he died in 1968 he left his estate to support the work of the Day Missions Collection. This endowment produces sufficient income to support a proactive program to preserve and provide access to materials documenting the history of Christian missions and World Christianity. With income from this Program, Yale Divinity Library has participated in a number of initiatives.

7 7 Yale is one of nine libraries in Australia, New Zealand and the United States supporting the Pacific Manuscripts Bureau ( an organization that microfilms at-risk archival and print collections in the Pacific Islands. A significant portion of the material they microfilm relates to Christianity in the Pacific. In October 2005 my colleague Martha Smalley and I traveled to Singapore where we participated in a consultation on how to improve the documentation of Christianity in Southeast Asia. One result of that consultation was the establishment of the Documentation of Christianity in Asia Consortium ( made up of Trinity Theological College (Singapore), Hong Kong Baptist University, Payap University (Thailand), and Yale Divinity School. The sorts of activities we intend for the consortium to undertake include: holding regional consultations on improving documentation the repatriation of documentation to libraries in Asia developing a collaborative web presence that will help researchers find resources collaboration in collection development identifying at-risk material for preservation. The Consortium is just under way, but already Trinity Theological College has held a consultation on documentation in Malaysia. This June Michael Poon will visit Yale Divinity School to help to develop the web presence. The Latourette Initiative has sponsored microfilming of archival materials at the World Council of Churches, including the following collections: World War II-era documents The archives of the World Student Christian Federation The Programme to Combat Racism Dialogue with People of Living Faiths Christian Medical Commission General correspondence Relations with the Roman Catholic Church Correspondence of the General Secretariat Other projects completed or under way include microfilming print and archival resources at the University of Edinburgh, the mission archives of the Evangelical Lutheran Church

8 8 in America, and a pilot project to microfilm documentation at the Uganda Christian University, beginning with the archives of the Church of the Province of Uganda. We have pending projects in Australia and New Zealand, South Africa, India, and the Caribbean. We are also interested in filming other U.S. denominational missions archives. And we are always interested in lining up additional projects for the future. In conclusion, I have told you much about what Yale Divinity Library has done and is doing about documenting Christianity in China and how we seek to provide access to that documentation. As for the future, we will continue to create detailed finding aids for archival collections. We will continue to create digital surrogates for content as funding is available. We will continue to preserve and provide access to collections, both print and non-print, that complement our collections. And we will continue to seek partners to work with us to improve the documentation of world Christianity. Paul F. Stuehrenberg Yale University Divinity School Library March 2007