Cornell University Library has acquired the Maeda Collection, the personal library of Japanese literary scholar and critic Maeda Ai. The acquisition was made possible by some $400,000 in gifts from Cornell alumni, friends, faculty and faculty emeriti.

"Maeda Ai was one of the most important critics and scholars of Japanese literature of the postwar period," says Frederic Kotas, Japanese bibliographer for the library's Wason Collection on East Asia.

The Maeda Collection consists of approximately 13,000 volumes, including early postwar publications and early Japanese translations of European literature that are almost impossible to obtain today. Although most of the material encompasses Japanese literature and literary history and criticism, there are numerous volumes on all aspects of Japanese cultural anthropology, social history and popular culture. The collection includes 3,000 volumes of pre-20th-century works with folded, stitch-bound leaves in traditional format. Perhaps the rarest and most valuable items in the collection are the diaries of the late 19th-century scholar and journalist Narushima Ryuhoku.

The acquisition of the Maeda Collection will enhance Cornell's reputation as a center for the study of modern Japanese literature and culture. "In the areas of postwar Japanese literature and late Tokugawa history and literature, Cornell now has one of the top collections of Japanese materials in North America," said Naoki Sakai, associate professor of Asian studies at Cornell.

The Cornell Library and the university's East Asia Program will hold an international symposium at Cornell, Nov. 6 to 8, on the life and work of Maeda Ai. Plans include a series of lectures and an exhibition of the Narushima diaries and other important items in the collection. The symposium will open with a ceremony commemorating the arrival of the collection, which Maeda Ai's widow is expected to attend.

For more information about the symposium, the Maeda Collection or Cornell Library's other East Asian holdings, contact Frederic Kotas at the Kroch Library, (607) 255-3979.