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Old and Rare Japanese Books in US Collections Please do not remove this page Old and Rare Japanese Books in U.S. Collections Sewell, Robert G. https://scholarship.libraries.rutgers.edu/discovery/delivery/01RUT_INST:ResearchRepository/12643382950004646?l#13643525030004646 Sewell, R. G. (1978). Old and Rare Japanese Books in U.S. Collections. College and Research Libraries, 39(3), 197–206. https://doi.org/10.7282/T3WM1BS6 This work is protected by copyright. You are free to use this resource, with proper attribution, for research and educational purposes. Other uses, such as reproduction or publication, may require the permission of the copyright holder. Downloaded On 2021/09/26 14:20:31 -0400 ROBERT 6. SEWELL Old and Rare Japanese Books in U.S. Collections This article discusses various patterns for organization of rare and old Japanese hooks in U.S. academic and research libraries. Criteria for collections of rare and specialized materials, storage and access, and hiblio- graphic control were investigated in major university and research libraries and art museums. Because each institution has established its own patterns of organization and criteria for rarity and special status, it is impossible, and probably unnecessary, to obtain agreement on universal and standard criteria for Japanese rare 19ooks. However, the lack of adequate biblio- graphic control for a large portion of this material is a matter of serious concern. THE INTEGRATION OF EAST ASIAN at several major university libraries- LANGUAGE MATERIALS into Western li- California (Berkeley), Chicago, Illinois, In- braries presents a variety of problems: diana, Harvard (Harvard-Yenching, Fogg Should the books be shelved with Western Art Museum), Yale, Columbia, and language materials or located in a separate Michigan-and the New York Public Li- facility? Should catalog cards for East Asian brary, Library of Congress, Art Institute materials be filed in a general library card and Field Museum in Chicago, Museum of catalog, in a separate card catalog, or both? Fine Arts, Boston, and the Metropolitan These are basic questions that libraries with Museum of Art, New York. East Asian holdings must decide. The situa- tion becomes more complex when dealing CRITERIA FOR RARE AND SPECIALIZED with rare and old books and manuscripts, COLLECTIONS which are frequently given further spe- The first areas of concern are the criteria cialized treatment because of their unusual for establishing rare and specialized collec- characteristics. tions of older Japanese materials. The sur- This article will analyze how U.S. librar- veys of East Asian collections in American ies and museums have defined, organized, libraries, which Tsuen-hsuin Tsien has permitted access to, and established biblio- undertaken for the Association for Asian graphic control over collections of rare and Studies' Committee on East Asian Libraries, pre-modern Japanese books and manu- periodically have included information on scripts. It is based on a study of collections rare materials and have provided an impor- tant starting point for the present study.' Tsien has established three standards of rar- Robert 6. Sewell is Japanese bibliographer, ity: pre-1600 imprints, manuscripts, and Far Eastern Library, University of Illinois at fine printing. The present study works Urbana-Champaign. This article is a revision of a within a broader framework, which encom- paper given at a meeting of the Association of Asian Studies in Toronto, Canada, in March passes Japanese materials specifically desig- 1976. The preliminary research for this study was nated as "rare" as well as other concen- facilitated by research and travel grants from the trations of Japanese materials that have not University of Illinois Library and the University been so defined but have unusual and of Illinois Center for Asian Studies. noteworthy characteristics. These charac- 198 / College G Research Libruries * Mny 1978 teristics include format, early publication dates, and special subject concentrations. Besides being located in East Asian librar- Format often establishes rarity or special ies, Japanese materials are found in special status. Manuscripts or works in hand-script international collections and in art museums. and scrolls are almost always placed in spe- Date of Publication cial custody in the library world. The rea- sons such items find their way into the rare For libraries, date of publication is the book category or special custody are he- simplest means of determining what is cause of their uniqueness (manuscripts are, "rare." Difficulties in precisely identifying after all, one of a kind) and the difficulty of the publication date in Japanese books and shelving their irregular formats. Colurnbia manuscripts are numerous. Frequently University's East Asian Library and the dates do not appear in publications earlier Orientalia Division of the Library of Con- than the mid-seventeenth century. When gress keep their copies of nam-ehon, or dates are provided, later copies of manu- Nara Picture Books (a kind of illustrated scripts, and later impressions and newly manuscript), in locked file cabinets. calved blocks for wood block printed books, Columbia University has also utilized may retain the original date of publication. format considerations for defining another Whatever the technical problems involved special collection of Japanese books. Having in date identification, libraries generally es- no rare book category per se, Columbia's tablish a cutoff date for rarity .2 East Asian Libraly places all of its wclhon, Among U.S. libraries that have such or books in traditional Japanese binding dates, there is little agreement. The East (double leaves stitched together with thread Asiatic Library at the University of Califor- on the right-hand side), in a locked cage nia, Berkeley, has the earliest cut-off date within its stacks. This segregation of tccrhon for rarity among U.S. collections: 1660. The is unusual among U.S. collections. Far Eastern Library of the University of The East Asiatic Library at Berkeley Washington describes works antedating maintains two collections of maps and man- 1700 as rare and the University of Illinois uscripts that combine both rare and nonrare Rare Book Room designates pre-1701 materials in order to keep works of similar Japanese imprints rare, whereas Harvard- format together. These collections are dis- Yenching Library places Japanese books tinct from their rare book room collection, published before 1799 in its Treasure Room. which is made up chiefly of printed works The Far Eastern Library at the University with imprint dates before 1660. The map of Chicago defines pre-Meiji, or pre-1868, collection consists of some 2,000 Japanese publications as rare. maps from the seventeenth to nineteenth While there are bibliographic and histori- centuries and printed primarily from cal reasons to support each of these dates, woodblocks or engraved copper plates. the fact remains that most U.S. libraries There are few collections of Japanese maps, have not determined any date for rarity for even in Japan, which can rival the extent Japanese publications. Other criteria are and quality of the one at Berkeley. The East used to demarcate rare or special Japanese Asiatic Library's manuscript collection com- materials. prises approximately 7,000 volumes, the majority of which are pre-twentieth century Scarcity covering a wide range of subjects, including Scarcity of a particular edition is a widely literature and governmental ordinances. recognized criterion for rarity. But there There are as well important literary manu- appears to be no consistent standard scripts of modern Japanese authors, such as enumerating how many (or few) copies of a Akutagawa Ryunosuke, Koda Rohan, and work make it rare. The criterion of "fine Tsubouchi Sh~yo.~ printing" is also vague and is usually related Another collection that is defined by for- to other considerations such as date, histori- mat but not restricted by national origin is cal significance of the work or printing the Spencer Collection of the New York technique, and price. Public Library. This collection began with Japanese Books / 199 Rare Book Room, Univers~tyof llllno~sat Urbana-Champaign Nara-ehon, or "Nnrcl-picture book," (I type of bound, illustrated inunuscript that flourished from the fifteenth to the secenteenth century. This seventeenth-century work relates the tcile of Kumano no honji. Rare Bwk Room, University of lllino~sat Urbana-Champaign Wahon, or Japanese-style book utilizing colorful covers and double leclues stitched together with thread and title lube1 pasted on upper left-hand side of cover. This work is an illustrated nouel, Temari uta sannin (1860s), in fifteen oolutnes by ShAei Kinsui. 200 I College G Research Libraries May 1978 an endowment and collection of French il- Museum of Fine Arts has a collection of ap- lustrated books from William Augustus proximately 500 illustrated books related to Spencer in 1912. The income from the en- the development of ukiyoe, the woodblock dowment was "to be spent for the purchase prints of the "Floating World" or contem- of the finest illustrated books and manu- porary scene of the Tokugawa period scripts that can be procured of any country (1600-1867). While these books are kept and in any language and of any peri~d."~with the Japanese print collection, they are The Spencer Collection is now one of the all shelved together in cabinets and are ar- greatest collections of works in pictorial ranged alphabetically by "designer," usually formats in the world. A significant part of a prominent illustrator. Since these books the collection is Japanese. It consists of 300 are not cataloged or under any sort of bib- illustrated manuscripts (chiefly emakimono, liographic control, their bound format is or picture scrolls) and 1,200 illustrated what distinguishes them from other print books from the eighth to the twentieth cen- material. tury, the majority of which are pre-Meiji. The bookish orientation of the collection (by Subject which is meant works with significant text as While some special collections are de- well as bound works) is confirmed by the signed around format, others are delineated fact that loose-leaf Japanese prints in the by subject matter.
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