Print in 16th to 17th Century Asia--

I took a little trip over to the library earlier this week. I didn't really realize how amazing the services were at the HBLL until finishing this assignment - there's really so much to look for, so many things to keep an eye out for. Google translate helped me out some also, as many of the books I found were not written in English. While I could kind of pick up what they said from cognates and the 3 languages I had exposure to shortly in school (French, Spanish, German), it was still nice to get a full picture through the modern wonders of the internet.

I chose to focus on non-European printing, specifically in the areas of China, Korea, and Japan.

Works Cited

Berry, Mary Elizabeth. Japan in Print: Information and Nation in the Early Modern Period. Berkeley, CA: University of California, 2006. Print. This book focuses on the introduction of print to Japan and how it influenced the culture of the nation.

Laufer, Berthold. Paper and Printing in Ancient China. New York: B. Franklin, 1973. Print. Originally derived from a lecture given by a professor, this short book concisely gives an overview of China and it's history in paper and print.

Pak, Pyong-son. Korean Printing from Its Origins to 1910. Seoul: Jimoondang, 2003. Print. The author states in the introduction that this book is written to preserve and inform of the history of print in Korea. More specifically, they try to inform just how early Korea developed print and how this influenced the country.

Vindel, Francisco. La Cultura Y La Imprenta Europeas En El Japon Durante Los Siglos XVI Y XVII. La Iniciativa Espanola, Base De Tan Importante Gesta 1548-1610.... Madrid: [Gongora], 1943. Print. This book tells of the culture of Japan during the time the Europeans got there and how print influenced it during the 16th and 17th centuries. It's written and printed in Spanish.

Walravens, Hartmut. Buch- Und Druckwesen Im Kaiserlichen China Sowie in Zentralasien, Korea Und Japan: Eine Annotierte Bibliographie. Stuttgart: Hiersemann, 2007. Print. This ended up being a good first book to find - it's a giant bibliography of books in various languages that detail print in East Asia from paper to type with annotations to boot!

My quest for information started with a quick look at the library catalog. I scanned for just about anything that talked about print, and was directed towards the fifth floor of the library. From there I found the giant German annotated bibliography that followed just my subject. Between searching the shelves and looking through the bibliography, I found the rest of the required books in a pretty short amount of time, no internet required past the initial section-finding.

Printing in East Asia especially interests me just because of the sheer amount of time they developed things early. Japan, Korea, and China were ahead of Europe for many years in paper manufacture, block printing and ink. My decision to look for this topic wasn't that hard after finding those interesting facts :)