Union Catalogue of Early Japanese Books

I recently discovered that the entire Kokusho So Mokuroku bibliography
of early Japanese books is now available online. I don't know when this
happened, but I think it must be within the last few months. There's nothing in the newsgroup archives to indicate that it's been
talked about here, so I thought I'd mention it. You never know, someone might get as excited about it as I am!

The Kokusho So Mokuroku is the starting point, really, for any research
into pre-Meiji publications. Having it on-line is fantastic. [Rant] Roll on the day when the comparable English catalogues (the Short Title Catalogue to 1640, the Wing Catalogue to 1700, the 18th century Short Title Catalogue, etc.) are available free on-line! [End of rant]

In fact the on-line version (properly the Union Catalogue of Early Japanese Books) is an upgraded version of the Kokusho So Mokuroku plus the Kotenseki Sogu Mokuroku plus various other additions and corrections, making it a state-of-the-art resource for anyone who is serious about older Japanese literature. OK, you can't browse its entries the way you can with the printed book, but from every other point of view it's a massive step forward and a welcome supplement to the library listings on NACSIS Webcat.

The Union Catalogue URL is:

http://base1.nijl.ac.jp/~tkoten/about-en.html

Other Digital Library databases are listed here:

http://www.nijl.ac.jp/contents/d_library/index.html

NACSIS Webcat is here:

http://webcat.nii.ac.jp/webcat_eng.html

And Webcat Plus:

http://webcatplus.nii.ac.jp/en/


John
http://rarebooksinjapan.org


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