In 1963 an interdisciplinary Southeast Asia Program was established at Northern Illinois University. In the following year the Center for Southeast Asian Studies (CSEAS) was founded to coordinate teaching, research and related activities. The Southeast Asia Collection was organized at the same time to meet the increasing needs of students and faculty.
In 1985 the collection was named the Donn V. Hart Southeast Asia Collection in honor of Dr. Hart's outstanding contributions in the field of Southeast Asian Studies both at Northern Illinois University and abroad. While serving simultaneously as the director of the CSEAS and professor of anthropology, Dr. Hart focused much of his energies on developing a strong Southeast Asia library collection. Today, the collection includes a large number of books, periodicals, microform sets, pamphlets, manuscripts, and videos. Materials from and pertaining to the eleven Southeast Asian countries are available in English and in vernacular languages. It is indeed one of the best collections for Southeast Asian studies in the country.
The collection holdings are unified in a section located on the 4th floor of the Founders Libraries.
