Library

A Message from the Head of the Library

In November 2024 Toyo Bunko will mark the centennial of its founding. The library traces its origins to the bold decision by Iwasaki Hisaya, third president of the Mitsubishi enterprises, to purchase the 24,000-volume library of Western Books on China that had been collected by the London Times’ special correspondent in Beijing, George Ernest Morrison. Building on the Morrison collection, Toyo Bunko has developed as a specialized research library on Asia. While the collection began with books on China, today its geographical scope covers all of Asia—from Japan to India, Southeast Asia, Central Asia and Western Asia. The library’s collection has expanded through the purchase of important books and materials as well as through gifts from collectors and scholars, today holding more than one million volumes. Among the rare books in the collection are five items that have been designated as National Treasures, including a Heian-era hand copy of the Chinese sixth-century collection of poetry, the Wenxuan jizhu, and seven titles that have been designated as Important Cultural Properties.

While it is possible to search the Toyo Bunko holdings online, our current system was created some years ago and it operates at a very slow speed. As part of the Centennial project, we are in a transitional stage to a new TB-OPAC. When the transition is completed in 2028, it will also be possible to search the Toyo Bunko collection through the Japanese universal search system, CiNii Books/Research on the website maintained by the NII (National Institute for Informatics).
The Toyo Bunko Library also has a reading room that is open to scholars as well as members of the public.* We welcome requests for copying of materials for research, as well as for reproduction in printed materials. Digitization projects that are part of the Centennial celebration projects will make images of an increasing part of the collection available online. We welcome your continued use of the Toyo Bunko Library.