Our mission is to promote understanding of Asian cultures and peoples and to assist educators at all levels, from elementary schools to colleges and universities, in finding resources for learning and teaching about Asia.

The Asian Educational Media Service (AEMS) is a program of the Center for East Asian and Pacific Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

AEMS Database
AEMS offers help in locating audio-visual media resources about Asia and advice in choosing among the many resources available. We maintain an extensive database with more than 5,000 records for DVDs, video cassettes, CD-ROMs, audio cassettes, and curriculum units with audio-visual components that are useful for learning and teaching about Asia. Each record includes information on how to obtain the item directly from its distributor. We invite you to be in contact with AEMS for direct assistance in finding resources, free of charge. Call us or write us (see contact information below), or use our request info form.

News & Reviews
Three times a year, AEMS publishes a free newsletter with review articles on recent Asia-related films and other multi-media resources, as well as essays on teaching about Asia. Drawn from around the world, our reviewers are experts in their fields and active educators; they evaluate films and other resources for content, accuracy, appeal, and educational usefulness Please drop us a line if you would like to be added to the News and Reviews mailing list.

Media Production Group (MPG)
MPG is a bi-national team of Japan Studies and media professionals who design and produce materials on Asia for public television and classroom use. Over the past 15 years, they have produced 22 documentary films, available for purchase through AEMS and Customflix.

Lesson Plans
AEMS offers several lesson plans for use with particular films. These were created for AEMS by respected educators and are available on our website.

Local Media Library
AEMS maintains a collection of high-quality videos and curriculum materials at our offices at the University of Illinois in Urbana, Illinois. The materials are available for viewing or browsing in the library, and are available for loan to educators in the Champaign County area. AEMS is a member of the Lincoln Trails Library System.

Workshops and Exhibits
Aems hosts educator workshops in central Illinois approximately twice a year. We also conduct workshops and organize exhibits at a variety of regional, national and international conferences related to Asian Studies and social studies education. AEMS supplies information packets and newsletters to educator workshops upon request.

Annual Asian Film Festival
Since 2003, AEMS has collaborated with EAPS to host an annual free film festival in downtown Champaign, open to the general public. Past film festivals have featured Popular Southeast Asian cinema (2007), South Korean cinema (2006), Pan-Asian cinema (2005), Transnational Chinese cinema (2004), and Japanese cinema (2003).

Funding
AEMS is supported by funding from The Freeman Foundation.

Leadership
AEMS is guided by a National Advisory Board and an on-campus University Committee. We also receive input from the EAPS Teachers Advisory Council.

History
The University of Illinois has hosted the Asian Educational Media Service for nearly ten years, when it arrived from Earlham College. The late Jackson H. Bailey, Professor of History at Earlham, founded the Center for Educational Media (CEM) in 1992. A man widely esteemed for his pioneering efforts to help Americans better understand Japan and East Asia, Dr. Bailey conceived of CEM as a clearinghouse for information about educational media on Japan. In July of 1997, a year after his death, the operation was moved to the Center of East Asian and Pacific Studies at the University of Illinois under the leadership of Professor David Plath, where its mission was expanded to include all of Asia and it was renamed the Asian Educational Media Service.