Japan Studies

Japan Studies Subject Guide ››

Collection Areas at the East Asia Library

The Japanese collection at the Tateuchi East Asia Library supports research and teaching related to Japan. As of June 2019, the collection consists of over 168,829 volumes, plus a large collection of audio visual material, periodicals, graphical materials, and e-resources such as online databases. The library will continue to emphasize the acquisition of materials in traditional formats while at the same time expanding its acquisition of electronic resources and increasingly providing access to databases related to Japan studies.

The primary collection development focus is on the humanities and social sciences. For fields such as natural science, medicine, business, art, and engineering, the Tateuchi East Asia Library acquires titles relating to the philosophical, historical, social, and cultural aspects of the disciplines.

Japan Studies Materials at Other UW Libraries

Materials relating to Japan in English and other western languages are located throughout the university library system; particularly in Suzzallo, Odegaard, and other branch libraries on campus. The Tateuchi East Asia Library works closely with librarians of these libraries in order to avoid duplicates.

The Gallagher Law Library collects materials on Japanese law. Their East Asian Law Department has one of the most extensive collections in North America.

Reference materials and monographs on Japanese scientific and technical topics can be found in the Engineering Library. This highly specialized collection also supports the research and teaching needs of the Technical Japanese Program.

Foster Business Library collects English-language materials on contemporary Japanese business. The Art Library collects materials in English related to Japanese art.

Collaboration in Collection Development

The East Asia Library is a member library of the OCLC Worldcat database, and as such, we continue to participate in developing a more comprehensive database of CJK materials at the national level. While the Japanese Studies collection acquires materials to serve our primary users at the University of Washington, our collection development also takes into consideration collection holdings at other universities. We cooperate with other libraries both in the United States and in Japan to share resources such as infrequently used, rare, expensive materials in order to be cost-effective in improving quality of our Japanese collection on a broader scale.