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Viewing
of the Magna Carta with the British High Commissioner 1952
photograph
Pictorial Collection
(Harold White second from right)
The Library acquired a 1297 Inspeximus issue of the Magna Carta
in 1952.
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In
the 1950s the Library began the systematic acquisition of publications
from Asia. It has since built up the largest research collection on Asia
in Australia, with over half a million volumes. In April 1962 a separate
Asian section was established to oversee the growing Chinese, Japanese,
and later Korean, Thai and Indonesian materials.
Since
the 1950s a number of major formed collections in Asian and Western languages
have been acquired from scholars and bibliophiles. They include the London
Missionary Society Collection on China (1961), the Braga Collection on
the Portuguese in Asia (1966), the Coedes Collection of Southeast Asia
(1970) and the Luce Collection on Burma (1980).
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Image
reproduced from M. Paske-Smith, Western Barbarians in Japan and
Formosa in Tokugawa Days, 16031868, (Kobe, Japan:
J.L. Thompson and Co. Ltd, [1930])
Harold S. Williams Collection; from the Asian Collections |
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