South Asian Studies

Prior to 1961, the focus of South Asian Studies at Duke lay chiefly in the area of Indian religion and philosophy. Trinity College offered a course on comparative religions -- incorporating Hinduism, Islam, and Buddhism -- as early as 1913. In turn, from the time of its foundation in 1926, the Divinity School Library made a conscious effort to build  a core collection of works on South Asian religion and philosophy. The year 1961 saw both the foundation of Duke's Program in Comparative Studies in Southern Asia and the inauguration of a national network of South Asian library acquisitions -- the PL 480 program, under the auspices of the Library of Congress. Duke University Library joined the PL 480 program and became one of the twelve prominent libraries around the country to receive current publications from India and Pakistan (including present-day Bangladesh). Nepal and Sri Lanka were later added to the program.  Due to changes in funding, the PL 480 program for South Asia became the South Asia Cooperative Acquisitions Program (SACAP) in the 1990's, though 'PL 480' persists as a popular name.

Description of the Collection

Since joining the Library of Congress's program, the library has built up one of the best collections of South Asian material in English and selected vernacular languages -- i.e., Bengali, Hindi, Marathi, Sanskrit, and Urdu -- in the Southeast. Although precise figures are unavailable, the number of volumes received through the PL 480 program is estimated to be about 250,000, including both serials and monographs. Coverage of English-language material is comprehensive -- including all subjects from aesthetics to zoology. Material in the vernacular languages is mostly literature and linguistics. The majority of items are housed at Perkins Library; however, the specialized titles are sent to the appropriate branch library such as Biological and Environmental Sciences, Chemistry, Divinity School, Law, Lilly, Marine Biology, Medical Center, Music and Vesic Library for Engineering, Math and Physics. There is no separate catalog or stack area for this collection. Once cataloged, all material is integrated with the general library collection and is accessed through the public catalogs. Areas of particular strength have included anthropology, religious studies, history, political science, and literature.

Out of print and rare items are acquired within the constraints of the funds available. Among these are the library's substantial collection of documents of the central and state governments of India from the colonial period to date. The Special Collections Library has several thousand historical papers, personal diaries, and correspondence concerning South Asia in its collection as part of British manuscripts. These diverse papers concern political, economic, social, diplomatic, ecclesiastical, military, and naval affairs.

Accessible through the South Asia Collection Office is the South Asian pamphlet collection of about 5,000 pamphlets.  Arranged by broad subject categories, the pamphlets cover a variety of subjects, chiefly political parties, government propaganda on birth control, family planning, economic policy, five year plans, agriculture, industry and tourism.

The Newspapers and Microforms Department receives by air mail two newspapers, the Times of India (Mumbai) and Dawn (Karachi). There is a time lag of seven to ten days for shipment of each title.  For the current holdings see Newspapers in the Collection.

The library has a sizeable collection of material in microform. Some of the notable items include: Census of India reports from 1871; India Gazetteers; Selections from the Records of the Government of India (about 450 vols.), (for detailed listings, see guide to the Selections compiled by John Sims); Selections from the Tracts of India Office Library, London, 57 reels (for detailed listings see the Calendar of Items Microfilmed at the India Office, London). Among the recent acquistions are about 2000 titles on a variety of subjects, especially the pamphlets microfiched by the Library of Congress. For pamphlets on microfiche click on South Asia Ephemera Collection in Duke’s online catalog. As a member of the South Asia Microform Project (SAMP), the library has access to thousands of rare monographs, serials, newspapers, government publications, archival material, etc. For a sampling of SAMP material see its SAMP catalog and the online catalog of the Center for Research Libraries.