Now Online: Japanese Rare Book Digital Collection
(The following is a post by Cameron Penwell, Japanese Reference Librarian, Asian Division)
The Japanese Rare Book Digital Collection, launched in December 2020, currently contains 35 titles in more than 270 volumes. Twenty-five of these rare books are newly digitized, while the remaining ten are titles that were first scanned and made available online several years ago. Only recently, however, were they assembled as a collection and configured for viewing on the Library’s updated platform for digital content.
Among the previously digitized materials are some rare and beautifully illustrated works of classical Japanese literature that have drawn attention from scholars around the world. Of particular interest are two unique editions of “The Tale of Genji,” the famous 11th-century work attributed to Murasaki Shikibu (c. 978–c. 1014), a lady-in-waiting at the imperial court in Kyoto (then known as Heiankyō). One of the two s