Digital Archives of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

The National Institute of Informatics (NII) promotes the digital archive project as well as other research projects by integrating information technology with the study of culture of the Silk Road resources of Toyo Bunko. Toyo Bunko is a leading library and research institute specializing in Asian studies dating back to 1917, when Hisaya Iwasaki purchased the private library of George Ernest Morrison. At the time, Morrison was a political advisor to the Office of the President of the Republic of China. At present, the Library contains approximately 880,000 volumes and is one of the five largest such collections dealing with Asian studies. To inaugurate this DSR Imaginary Museum Library, images along with metadata from specially selected pages gleaned from the most 70 valuable and rare materials by 29 authors (totaling 17,593 pages) are presented.

As of January, 2007