About the Collection: Japan

The Library holds some 160,000 monographs for Japanese studies. In addition, there are over 1,000 Japanese language periodicals, some 300 western language periodicals, and over 300 audio-visual materials for teaching and research in Japanese studies. The main focus is on the humanities & social sciences.

The Japan Collection (Level C) holds books on Japan in western and Japanese languages. Materials on Japanese art and archaeology are located in the Art Section (Level D) and the Law Collection (Level D) holds western language books on Japanese law.

The Library includes an extensive collection of pre-modern texts and prints including some 300 woodblock print books; over 500 prints are held in the collections, and some Japanese manuscripts are held in the Archive section.  Details can be found in A descriptive catalogue of the pre-1868 Japanese Books in the SOAS Library (Chibbett. 1975, Ref.D010/348099) and Catalogue of Japanese Manuscripts in the Library of the School of Oriental and African Studies (Yasumura. 1979, Ref. D010/462453).

The Library subscribes to major research databases; the list is available on the A-Z Databases List

How to search the Library catalogue for Japanese titles.