EAST ASIAN PUBLISHING AND SOCIETY East Asian Publishing and Society 2 (2012) 76-82 brill.nl/eaps An Introduction to Iwase Bunko Library 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 proj- ect being conducted by Professor Shiomura Kō of Nagoya University, research- ers 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 biblio- graphic 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.