PRRLA members – University of California, Irvine Libraries

UC Irvine Libraries collections related to the Pacific Rim reside in our East Asian
Collection and Southeast Asian Archive. The strength of our Pacific Rim collections
reflects our region and its communities. The City of Irvine, which is located
in Orange County, California, has a significant Chinese population. Orange
County is also home to the second largest Korean American population in the
United States and the largest Vietnamese population outside of Vietnam.

East Asian Collections

The East Asian Collection, established in 1990, is a significant resource for research and teaching at the University of California, Irvine. It includes the Asian Studies Collection (Chinese, Korean, and Japanese language materials) and the Korea Corner. The collection also houses rare and precious materials, including the I-Ching Collection, some 2,000 volumes, largely in Chinese and Japanese traditional binding format and with publication date back to 1911 and earlier; Shūkan Shōnen Magajin (1959–1995), a popular manga magazine among Japanese youth; and Hanʼguk Hojŏk Sŏngchʻaek and Koseki Daicho, two complete sets of significant Korean census records from the colonial period.

Southeast Asian Archive

The Southeast Asian Archive (SEAA), which is part of the Libraries’ Special Collections and Archives, documents the diasporic, refugee, and immigrant experience of Southeast Asians to the United States and their resettlement, the formation and evolution of their communities, and their accomplishments. These materials are of strong interest to researchers and instructors as well as a source of material for creative works. As one example, our collection inspired the playwright Qui Nguyen to write the plays Vietgone and Poor Yella Rednecks about his family’s experiences when he found photographs of his family in the collection, and his work on Disney’s film Raya and the Last Dragon. We also have many community members who are interested in viewing these materials for family history and cultural reasons. These materials range from books, pamphlets, and photographs to oral histories.

Pacific Rim Library

The Pacific Rim Library (PRL) helps to enhance access to PRRLA members’ collections and provides added value for researchers. For example, a search within PRL for “Vietnamese refugees” will yield UC Irvine’s materials and related materials from other PRRLA member institutions. More specifically, search results will include both the Vietnamese refugee oral histories and ephemera from UC Irvine Libraries’ archives and the photographs of Vietnamese refugees from University of Hong Kong’s “Old Hong Kong” and “Hong Kong: The Classic Age” collection. These research materials complement each other and PRL facilitates the discovery of information across institutions which benefit scholars and researchers.

Future opportunities include exploring whether other PRRLA member institutions have materials related to the Southeast Asian diaspora experiences or materials found in the UC Irvine East Asian Collection where the metadata has not yet been harvested into the Pacific Rim Library database. We look forward to future discussions that will enhance resource sharing and research opportunities among PRRLA member libraries.  

For more information regarding University of California, Irvine Library, you may refer to the website HERE.