Japanese Collection
See also: Japanese Collection main page | Japanese new acquisitions list
The Japanese language collection of the National Library of Australia numbers some 115,000 volumes of monographs and over 4,500 serial titles. It is the largest such collection in the southern hemisphere. The collection also offers resources in various formats such as online, DVDs, microfilms and pictures.
Collection strength
The strengths of the collection lie in the subject fields of the social sciences and history after 1868. In social science, significant collections on current social conditions, minorities, sex and gender studies, women's studies, statistics, politics and government and law are being developed. Among the history collection, particular stress are laid on the history of migrants, the history of Australia-Japan relationship and the history of Japanese encounter with western countries. Among other subjects, focuses are also on: fine and performing arts, popular culture, military science, science and technology (periodicals only).
Less emphasis has been placed on the subjects of philosophy, religion, history before 1868, local history and geography, linguistics and literature because these subjects are the collecting responsibility of the Library of the Australian National University under a special agreement.
Another great strength of the National Library's Japanese collection is the large number of Japanese government publications received regularly on exchange from the National Diet Library in Tokyo. These include statistics of many kinds including various censuses and surveys; proceedings of the Japanese Diet; the government gazette; collections of laws and statutes; Japanese diplomatic records; white papers; various ministerial journals, etc.
Collection in various formats
Some newspapers and major reference titles are offered as online resources; selected titles are also available for registered library users to access remotely.
Much retrospective material is held on microfilms including material on army and navy activities, foreign affairs, and Australia from various government archives; collections of papers of politicians like Okuma Shigenobu; prefectural statistics from the Meiji and Taisho eras; laws from the Tokugawa period; censored periodicals and Occupational Forces official documents from the Occupation period and so forth.
Special collections
In addition there is the Harold S Williams Collection of books on Japan which are available from the Asian Collections Reading Room. The collection comprises books and pamphlets on foreign settlement in Japan, some of which are extremely rare, and it is considered to be perhaps one of the finest collections on this subject in the world. There is a manuscript part of the HS Williams collection for which an online finding aid is available. It is serviced from the Manuscripts Reading Room.
The Library offers grants and fellowships supporting scholars who wish to use the collections for the study of Japan. The grants are supported by the HS Williams Trust Fund.
