Totaling more than 1.5 million volumes, the Harvard-Yenching Library has one of the largest collections in East Asian studies outside of Asia.

The small collection of books that was purchased for this course became Harvard College Library's first acquisitions in any East Asian language.

In 1914, two Japanese professors (Masaharu Anesaki and Unokichi Hattori from om Tokyo Imperial University to lecture at Harvard.

The once predominantly humanistic collection evolved into a research library that encompasses East Asian materials in all academic disciplines.

The Library eventually added Tibetan, Mongolian and Manchu publications, and Western language monographs and journals.