Modern Asia
With the end of World War II in 1945, the Library's focus on
Asia shifted, reflecting America's emergence as a world power.
The Asian Division sharply reduced its emphasis on collecting
the classics, often in rare, old editions, and turned its attention
to becoming a leading resource on contemporary developments in
Asia. Luther B. Evans, Librarian of Congress from 1945 to 1953,
defined this new acquisition policy in 1945:
Our Chinese library, large as it is, distinguished as it
is, has been too largely formed on classic rather than on contemporary
principles with the result that conflict in modern Asia has
sometimes found us inept or actually impotent. Hereafter we
must discriminate between an impulse to rescue the literature
of the past and the imperative to control the literature of
the present.
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