An Introduction to Iwase Bunko Library

EAST ASIAN PUBLISHING AND SOCIETY East Asian Publishing and Society 2 (2012) 76-82 brill.nl/eaps

Dylan McGee Nagoya University1 Graduate School of Comparative Languages and Cultures, Nagoya, Japan [email protected]

Iwase Bunko Library, located in Nishio City, Aichi Prefecture, is home to one of the most important collections of early modern Japanese printed books and manuscripts in central Japan. Now, thanks to an ambitious bibliographic project being conducted by Professor Shiomura Kō of Nagoya University, researchers and librarians can investigate, with unprecedented precision, nearly every facet of every book at Iwase Bunko Library. Currently in its eleventh year, this project has produced a public catalogue of extraordinarily detailed bibliographic information for over 16,000 titles at Iwase Bunko Library, with thirty- four categories of bibliographic data per title, including information about the provenance and narrative content of each work. In the interest of bringing this bibliographic resource to the attention of other researchers in the field, this piece offers an introduction to the online catalogue, descriptions of some of the notable items in its holdings, as well as a brief history of the library itself.

A Brief History of the Library

Iwase Bunko Library was founded in in Meiji 41 (1908) by Iwase Yasuke 岩瀬弥助 (1867-1930), a wealthy businessman and politician from Nishio. Iwase began his career as the fourth-generation proprietor of the Yamamoto-ya, a vendor of fertilizer, before raising capital through a series of successful stock investments. In Meiji 31 (1898), Iwase was elected mayor of Nishio. While his tenure as an elected official was brief (he stepped down from the position just sixteen months into office), it marked the beginning of a long career in

1 I would like to express my thanks to Professors Shiomura Kō and Itō Nobuhiro of Nagoya University for sharing their insights into the collection at Iwase Bunko Library, as well as to the library staff.

1633 edition of Usuyuki monogatari (The tale of Usuyuki) in the Iwase Bunko Library. civic philanthropy. Iwase contributed to the construction of local schools and hospitals, as well as a railroad line connecting Nishio to other major stations in the region. The extensive holdings of Iwase Bunko Library, which numbered over 27,000 volumes at the time of its founding, the most in Aichi Prefecture, bespeak its place within Iwase’s vision for civic improvement. Unlike some of the important individual and family collections in the region, such as the Hōsa Bunko Library in Nagoya, the volumes in the Iwase Bunko Library were acquired for the express purpose of public education. Even after the founding of the library, which entailed an estimated cost of 30,000 yen (approximately 200 million yen today), Iwase spent an estimated 300 yen per month (approximately 2 million yen) to renew and expand its holdings, acquiring books in many areas of study. Although a public library, Iwase Bunko was never intended to be a lending library; all of its amenities were designed around the premise that a local constituency of readers would gather on site to access its materials. Accordingly, the original structure, a three-story brick building with a basement level, was built with some amenities not seen in other librar- ies of the time, such as a reading room with reserved seats for women and a play area for children. Today, visitors to Iwase Bunko can still view this