Collections : [C.V. Starr East Asian Library]

Series I contains correspondence, meeting agenda and minutes, proposals, expense and budget notes that showcase de Bary's participation and liaison with various academic and general associations and committees. In particular, de Bary engaged extensively with the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) and actively participated in the activities by its Committee on Studies of Chinese Civilization (CCC) and Joint Committee on Chinese Studies (JCCS).

Series II contains the spectrum of materials related to de Bary's decades-long career, primarily at Columbia University. Organized alphabetically, Sub-Series II.1 includes all general files, notably those related to the establishment of the Committee on Oriental Studies, departmental affairs within, first, the Department of Chinese and Japanese and later, the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures (EALAC). Additional files shed light on de Bary's roles in various university committees and project groups. Sub-Series II.2 includes administrative files related to the Core Commission and the Core Curriculum. Note that the actual teaching contents of the Core Curriculum are gathered under Series VI: Teaching/Course Materials. Sub-Series II.3 includes general materials on the Heyman Center for the Humanities, which was established during de Bary's term as the Provost. Additional Heyman files may be have been interspersed in the neighboring Sub-Series.

Organized chronologically, Series IV consists of administrative and program-related files from the myriad academic meetings de Bary attended in more than half a century. Materials include correspondence, conference reports, itineraries, etc. Selected folders might contain manuscripts of the papers presented, but the majority of those has been organized under Sub-Series X.4: Articles, Lectures, Speeches.

Series IX.1 includes groupings of mostly handwritten research notes and reference materials on East Asian history and civilizations, collected during research and course preparations. Additional loose materials are gathered under Sub-Series IX.2: Miscellaneous.

Over the course of his decades-long career, Professor de Bary had carried out multiple conventions in organizing correspondences. Sub-Series V.1 includes all titled correspondence folders organized alphabetically. Sub-Series V.2 includes files from primarily between 1970s and early 2000s, grouped by correspondents' initials. Sub-Series V.3 includes early correspondence from primarily between 1959 and 1971, organized chronologically by year. Sub-Series V.4 gathers student recommendations letters written mostly between 1992 and 2002, organized alphabetically. Additional correspondences with students might be located in neighboring Sub-Series, in departmental files, as well as Sub-Series VI.4: Student Thesis Proposals and Dissertations.

Albeit loosely organized and many left unannotated, photographs in Series VII provide meaningful visual evidence of various important occasions in de Bary's professional and personal life. Events. Pictured events include travels to East Asia, conferences, and ceremonies.

Series VI consists of teaching materials, grades and repots, and correspondences from courses in the Core Curriculum and on general East Asian Humanities. Sub-Series VI.1 includes materials on the Faculty Transcultural Workshop/Colloquium Workshop, Nobility and Civility workshops, Nature and Human Nature, and Classics for an Emerging World. Sub-Series VI.2 gathers materials from courses such as East Asian Humanities: Major Works, Oriental Civilizations (East Asian Civilizations), Introduction to Chinese Thought, Introduction to Japanese Thought, Sung-Ming Thought Seminars, etc. Organized by course title and chronologically, the materials provide great insights on the evolution of the course contents. Sub-Series VI.3 includes miscellaneous course and grading files. Sub-Series VI.4 gathers proposals and manuscripts from students, mostly at the PhD level. Additional exchanges with students may be identified in departmental files and in Series V: Correspondence.