C.V. Starr East Asian Library

It is one of the largest East Asian libraries in North America, consisting of over one million volumes of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Tibetan, Mongolian, Manchu, and Western-language materials, almost 7,500 periodical titles, and extensive special collections.

The foundation for the library and the Chinese collection began with a donation by Empress Dowager Cixi of the 5,044 volume encyclopedia Gujin Tushu Jicheng, one of three copies of the book currently located outside of China.

[2] Its relationship with the National Library of China in Beijing began in 1963, through which it was able to acquire, at significantly cheaper prices, materials that would have otherwise been impossible to access through its old method of buying books in Hong Kong and Japan.

Over the duration of the exchange program, Columbia received copies of the People's Daily, the Red Flag, and the Beijing Review, a "complete set of Communist law books," in addition to transcriptions of opera performances, recordings of folk music and orchestral performances using Chinese instruments, and films of traditional Chinese paintings.

[7] The library's Korean collection holds, among other things, an extremely rare early printed version of Yongbieocheonga, volumes 9 and 10, the first work ever written in Hangul.