The Cheng Yu Tung East Asian Library is proud to be the intellectual and cultural centre of the academic community for East Asian and Asian Canadian-related studies and programs at the University of Toronto. Working with our collections and communities, our librarians and library staff continue to work to support research, teaching, and learning at the university and beyond.
The library’s story begins with a collection of rare materials acquired from China in the 1930s, now known as the Mu Collection (慕氏藏書). Since then, the East Asian Library has grown to become home to some 700,000 volumes of materials in Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Tibetan, with additional limited resources in Mongolian, Manchu, and Uighur. It is a major research collection on East Asian Studies in North America.
In fulfilling its role as a leading East Asian resource centre in the nation, the library is deeply indebted to its many supporters and donors. On July 11, 1991, the library was named the Cheng Yu Tung East Asian Library (鄭裕彤東亞圖書館) to recognize the especially significant contribution and dedicated support of Dr. Cheng for the improvement and expansion of the library.
Read on to learn more about our history and our collections.