Evgenii Philippov
National Library of Russia. Expert Librarian (The Japanese Collection)

Sources of acquisition of the Japanese Collection in the National Library of Russia 

The presentation introduces the history of the formation of the Japanese collection in the Russian National Library. It is represented in various departments: there are Japanese materials in Print Department, Manuscripts Department, Rare Books Department, Maps Department and even in the main book collection in Russian language. However, the most of Japanese literature hold in Japanese fund of Department of Asian and African Countries Literature and we focused on it. Briefly presenting the history of the collection and the department, research the history of the acquisition and formation of the Japanese fund. Thus, limited by the task of telling the history of the department and the formation of the Japanese collection briefly, the author deliberately focuses on many "problems", "difficulties" and «negative factors". Not in order to underestimate the value of the Japanese collection of the NLR - but in order to show how the department, people, books adapted to different conditions. Researching the history of the acquisition we understand that if in the XIX century the Japanese fund was acquired exclusively from donation to the library (in an unsystematic and random way), at the beginning of the XX century, along with the remaining main source of acquisition - the donation of orientalists, private libraries, Japanese Government and literature expropriated by the Soviet government there were appeared the regular international book-exchange connections (especially in periodicals), which since the 1960s have become a systematic and main source of replenishment for the Japanese literature fund. Now, despite the fact that volumes have decreased (in 1990 because of economic reason, since 2014 of geopolitical one), the international book-exchange has become the main source of acquisition (about 70%) and the library no longer relies on the choice of literature donators, but chooses the necessary one from several thousand publications.