Southeast Asia Collection
The Southeast Asia Collection at Ohio University Libraries, established in 1967, is among the oldest and largest collections of research materials on Southeast Asia in North America. Ohio University Libraries acquires materials on all of the countries of Southeast Asia. However, library holdings on Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore and Brunei are especially strong. Since 2005, Ohio University has also made great strides in expanding its library holdings on Thailand. The Southeast Asia Collection directly supports the curriculum and research of the Center for Southeast Asian Studies and an ever-expanding circle of students and faculty at Ohio University and beyond.
The Southeast Asia Collection houses a number of special sub-collections and other resources, including the Malaysian Resource Center, the Marion Alden Southeast Asia Fine Arts Collection, and the David K. Wyatt Thai Collection.
Collection Focus
- An interdisciplinary collection with an emphasis on Southeast Asian culture, history, language, literature, politics and religion
- Strengths include large holdings of Chinese, Indonesian, Malay, and Thai vernacular materials
- Approximately 325,000 books, 380 journal titles, 2,000 feature and documentary films, and well over 63,000 microfilm titles.
- Extensive newspaper collection & specialized microform sets
- Substantial SEA film collection
For a more detailed overview of the SEA Collection and other library resources, see the SEA Studies Research Guide.
David K. Wyatt Thai Collection
About the Collection
The David K. Wyatt Thai Collection, acquired by Ohio University Libraries in 2005, is a vast treasure trove of primary and secondary materials on Thailand, including some of the rarest of rare Thai-language monographs, cremation volumes and manuscripts. The collection is housed in the Hwa-Wei Lee Center for International Collections in the Vernon R. Alden Library. Materials from the Wyatt Collection are searchable in English and Romanized script in ALICE.
In 2010, which marked the 100th anniversary of the death of King Chulalongkorn, Ohio University Libraries digitized a selection of rare books from the David K. Wyatt Thai Collection. The collection consists of King Chulalongkorn’s 24-volume diary, spanning the years 1886 to 1887, and more than 30 volumes of travel writings, chronicling the King’s visits to India, Malaya, Singapore, Java, Western Europe, Russia, and the remote corners of Siam. The entire collection is freely accessible on the Internet Archive.
For further information about the David K. Wyatt Thai Collection, contact Jeffrey Shane.
About David K. Wyatt
David K. Wyatt, the eldest of five children, was born in Fitchburg, Massachusetts in 1937. Wyatt spent much of his childhood in Cedar Rapids and Waterloo, Iowa. He studied philosophy at Harvard University, from which he took a Bachelor’s degree in 1959. He received a M.A. in History from Boston University in 1960. He graduated from Cornell University with a Ph.D. in History in 1966. In 1964, prior to completing his dissertation, Wyatt accepted a teaching position at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London, where he taught Southeast Asia History until 1968. From 1968 to 1969, he taught at the University of Michigan. Subsequently, in 1969 he accepted a teaching position at Cornell University, where he served as the Director of the Southeast Asia Program, Chair of the Department of History, and the John Stambaugh Professor of History & Asian Studies before retiring in 2002.
David Wyatt was the recipient of numerous awards, including a Senior Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities (1973-1974), and a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship (1983). Professor Wyatt also served as President of the Association for Asian Studies between 1993 and 1994.
During his distinguished career, Wyatt published a prodigious number of articles and books. In addition to several translations of Thai chronicles, and contributions to In Search of Southeast Asia (1971, c1987), and The Emergence of Modern Southeast Asia (2005), Dr. Wyatt is the author of The Politics of Reform in Thailand (1969), Thailand: A Short History (1984, c2003), Siam in Mind (2002), and Reading Thai Murals (2003).
Professor Wyatt succumbed to congestive heart failure on November 14, 2006, in Ithaca, New York. He was 69. Long recognized as a leading authority on Southeast Asia, and the foremost historian of Thailand, the impact of his passing on the academic world cannot be exaggerated. Wyatt helped give shape to the field of Southeast Asian studies, and left behind a formidable body of literature on Thai history which, in terms of both quantity and quality, will not likely be surpassed for many decades to come.
Marion Alden Southeast Asia Fine Arts Collection
The Marion Alden Southeast Asia Fine Arts Endowment was established in 1986 by Dr. Vernon R. Alden, former President of Ohio University (1962-1969) as a gift to his wife, Marion Parson Alden, on the occasion of their 35th wedding anniversary. The endowment supports the acquisition of fine arts materials for the Southeast Asia Collection. Throughout her life, Marion Alden was an enthusiast and avid patron of the arts. She was a member of the Arts Council at MIT, the Arts Advisory Board at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, a trustee of Ohio University’s Kennedy Museum of Art and the American Repertory Theater, and a member of the Boston Symphony Orchestra Volunteers.
Malaysian Resource Center
The Malaysian Resource Center was established at Ohio University in 1987 to better inform individuals and organizations in North America about Malaysia. The Center serves as the U.S. depository for books, government documents and media that exemplify Malaysian culture and history. Available library resources also cover Malaysian agriculture, economics, environment, media, art and politics. The Perpustakaan Negara Malaysia (National Library of Malaysia) collects and ships library resources to the Center each year. These materials are available to Ohio University students and faculty, as well as outside researchers and organizations through interlibrary and document delivery services.