Digital Collections

This section of the guide introduces digital collections from the Asian Division as well as those containing Japanese or Japan-related items from other divisions of the Library of Congress.

Japanese Digital Collections from the Asian Division

Ainu and Ezochi Rare Collection
This grouping of rare Japanese materials brings together books, manuscripts, and maps produced during the 18th and 19th centuries that document the indigenous Ainu people and the region known as Ezochi, the Japanese island and prefecture now called Hokkaido.
Pacific Encounters in Nineteenth-Century Japan
This digital collection features rare materials at the Library of Congress that document early Japanese interactions with the United States and countries in Europe, namely Britain, France, Netherlands, and Russia.
Japanese Censorship Collection
This collection contains 1,327 marked-up copies of censored monographs and galley proofs for approximately 1,100 titles, mostly from the 1920s and 1930s. They include copies submitted by publishers for examination by censors in the Home Ministry of the Japanese imperial government as well as books lawfully confiscated for censor review. Due to copyright restrictions, the number of titles available for offsite viewing is limited.
Japanese Rare Book Digital Collection
This collection features select materials from the more than 6,000 titles in the Japanese Rare Book Collection in the Asian Division at the Library of Congress. These rare books span diverse genres and cover all manner of subjects, generally published prior to 1868.

Japan-Related Digital Collections from Other Divisions

Ansel Adams's Photographs of Japanese-American Internment at Manzanar
In 1943, Ansel Adams (1902-1984), America's most well-known photographer, documented the Manzanar War Relocation Center in California and the Japanese Americans interned there during World War II. Adams's Manzanar work is a departure from his signature style landscape photography. Although a majority of the more than 200 photographs are portraits, the images also include views of daily life, agricultural scenes, and sports and leisure activities.
College Women's Association of Japan Print Show Collection
More than 180 artists living and working in Japan created the 212 fine art prints in the College Women's Association of Japan Print Show Collection. The prints, dating primarily from 2003 to 2005, encompass a rich diversity of styles, printmaking techniques, and subject matter. The CWAJ show, an annual event in Tokyo, Japan, since 1956, is a renowned venue for contemporary Japanese creative print art, known as hanga.
Fine Prints: Japanese, pre-1915
The Library's Prints & Photographs Division houses more than 2,500 woodblock prints and drawings by Japanese artists of the seventeenth through early twentieth centuries including Hiroshige, Kuniyoshi, Sadahide, and Yoshiiku. The Library acquired its Japanese woodblock print holdings from a host of different donors and collectors including Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, President William Howard Taft, Crosby Stuart Noyes, and Emily Crane Chadbourne.
Japanese-American Internment Camp Newspapers, 1942 to 1946
Produced by the Japanese Americans interned at assembly centers and relocation centers around the country during World War II, these newspapers provide a unique look into the daily lives of the people who were held in these camps. They include articles written in English and Japanese, typed, handwritten and drawn. They advertise community events, provide logistical information about the camps and relocation, report on news from the community, and include editorials.
William Speiden Journals
As purser’s clerk aboard the U.S. steam frigate Mississippi, William Speiden, Jr., (1835-1920) created a two-volume journal dating from 1852 to 1855 documenting the U.S. Naval Expedition to the China Seas and Japan under the command of Commodore Matthew C. Perry. The two journals give an account of shipboard life, diplomacy, and travel as well as ports of call in a myriad of international locations during the global journey of the Mississippi.

Japanese Digitized Microfilm from the Asian Division

The Japanese collection has digitized select microfilm collections as part of a wider Library project. Digitized microfilm collections from this ongoing effort are listed below.

Nan'yōchō Collection - Nan'yōchō kankei bunsho Part 1 and Part 2

The "Nan’yōchō Collection" comprises two sets of Japanese microfilm that span 52 reels. It reproduces documents and publications originally produced by Japan's Nan'yōchō 南洋庁, or South Seas Administration, that were later captured by the US military after World War II. This government agency was formed in 1921 to administer the South Seas Mandate, consisting of Pacific islands that Germany ceded to Japan after its defeat in World War I. It was dissolved in 1946 following Japan's surrender to the United States. The areas once under its administration are now part of the Federated States of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, the Northern Mariana Islands, and Palau.

Collection items contained in Nan'yōchō kankei bunsho - Parts 1 and 2 of the Nan'yōchō Collection
Follow this link to browse the individual catalog entries for all 128 items contained in these two microfilm sets. Links to the digitized microfilm version of each item can be found within the catalog records.

Nan'yōchō kankei bunsho. Part 1 Nanʾyōchō collection
Call Number: Microfilm MOJ5017
This digitized microfilm set reproduces some 40 items on 18 microfilm reels, mostly handwritten reports and some published materials, pertaining to the Nanʾyōchō and its related institutions. It contains family registers, police records, and records for officials, residents, and employees, including Korean employees in the sugar refinery farm of Nan'yō Kōhatsu Kabushiki Kaisha.
Nan'yōchō kankei bunsho. Part 2, Nanʾyōchō collection
Call Number: Microfilm MOJ5017
This digitized microfilm set reproduces some 90 items on 34 microfilm reels, mostly manuscript reports pertaining to the Nan'yōchō and its related institutions. It also includes some published reports and serial publications of trade associations and research institutes.

Japanese Collection: Asian Collections at the Library of Congress

Asian Studies: Ask a Librarian

Digital Collections

Japanese Digital Collections from the Asian Division

Japan-Related Digital Collections from Other Divisions

Japanese Digitized Microfilm from the Asian Division

Nan'yōchō Collection - Nan'yōchō kankei bunsho Part 1 and Part 2