The predecessor of Oriental Library is Morrison Library founded by British George Ernest Morrison. Morrison came to China on 1897 as a reporter for The Times of London, and later served as a British adviser to the Beiyang warlord government. During the twenty years from 1897 to 19 17, this person collected more than 24,000 books and documents in China, and 1000 maps and scrolls. These documents are mainly compiled by the relevant departments of China, Siberia and Southeast Asian countries in more than ten languages, including English, French, German, Italian, Russian, Japanese, Spanish, Portuguese, Swedish, Polish, Hungarian, Greek and Finnish. These works involve politics, diplomacy, legal system, economy, military affairs, history, archaeology, art, geography, geology, animals and other fields. There are many rare editions and rare books, such as Notes on the Orient by Kyle Poirot, and Morrison Library has 1415th century publications. These documents also contain a lot of extremely important information about China's modern history, such as the quarterly report, annual report and tenth annual report since the establishment of China Customs, the report on foreign affairs in the Far East of the United States, the blue book of the British government on China, and the reports of European embassies in China. In addition, there are more than 500 Chinese dictionaries, most of which are 17- 19 century's various "manuals" for missionaries to translate Chinese dialects into European languages. In addition, there are 100 periodicals with more than 5,000 volumes, which are specialized magazines about China and East Asia, as well as periodicals and papers of the Asian Society and the Oriental Society in European countries. The above information was first kept in Dongjiaomin Lane, Beijing, China. Finally, Morrison Library, a private library named after my surname, was established in Wangfujing Street Apartment in Beijing, with a collection of about 24,000 books. 19 16 or so, Morrison sold these documents privately, and had negotiated with Yale University, University of California, Dutch legation, etc. This news was known by Inoue Junnosuke, president of Justice Bank in Yokohama, Japan (he later served as finance minister in Yamamoto Gonnohyō e's cabinet), and he held talks with the then Mitsubishi chaebol tycoon. 19 17 summer, they appointed the director of Zhengjin Bank, Oda Jiri Masunosuke, as the representative, and brought the famous Japanese historian Yasuke Ishida to China. After repeated negotiations with Morrison, they finally clinched a deal for 35,000 pounds on August 29th of the same year, and these ancient books were hidden in the villa of Kumi Iwasaki, Kamikawa, Japan.

On the basis of these documents from China, Iwasaki Jiugong allocated 3.55 million yen as a fund, and formally established the Oriental Library in June 1924+0 1. Under the management of Ishida Kensuke, Mi Xiong Yi and others, the Oriental Library has a comprehensive collection of books on oriental studies from various countries. By the end of last century, the collection of books had reached more than 950,000 volumes, including books and materials from China, Japan, Korea, Mongolia, Siberia, Central Asia, West Asia, Egypt, India, Southeast Asia and other countries and regions.

Oriental Library is known as the treasure house of Asian literature in Japanese academic circles. In fact, it is a specialized library and research institute dedicated to the culture of China and China. China's rare books include: about 4,000 China local chronicles and series, more than 500 dictionaries of Chinese dialects, China's genealogy, Manchu and Mongolian books in Qing Dynasty, China's expedition report, China archaeological materials, Shuntian Times, Bao Zheng in North China, various versions of the Tripitaka and 365,438+000 other Tibetan documents. Among them, five Chinese books are listed as "Japanese national treasures" in the special collection of Oriental Library. Three of them, namely, Chunqiu Ji, Historical Records (Xia Benji), Qin Benji and Notes on Selected Works, are all manuscripts written in the Heian period (794- 1 185), which are very valuable. In the history of Han nationality in Japan, it belongs to "quasi-Han nationality". The other two, Shi Mao and Wen Gu Shangshu, were written by China Tang people who were introduced to Japan. There are three versions of Shi Mao in the Tang Dynasty, all of which are incomplete volumes. One is the collection of Tokyo National Museum. This volume is a fragmentary edition of Shi Mao Justice, and now contains the last two sentences of "Han Yi" and a poem of "Jianghan" in the fifteenth biography of 18th Dang Shi Zhi. It has been identified as "an important cultural asset of Japan". The other is the Kyoto City Collection, which is the remnant of a single sparse edition of Shi Mao. Now it is the sixth volume, with four remnants. The content of Qin Feng's Biography of Qin Che Neighbourhood is a part of the prose from the end of Xiao Rong to the beginning of Jia Xu, and some of it and its later fragments. The contents of these four papers are not completely continuous, but they are close to the original appearance of Shi Mao Zheng Yi. It is also recognized as "an important cultural asset of Japan". The third is the collection of books in today's Oriental Library. This is the only Shi Mao Zheng Xuan notebook preserved in Japan today. The sixth volume (Tang style) and the tenth volume of "Biography of Shi Mao exegeting and practicing crickets in Tang Dynasty in Oriental Library" contain calligraphy "stopping in ancient times" and anti-cutting, and occasionally criticize it under a pseudonym, which was written by Dr. Ping An (794- 1 185). This volume was identified as a "national treasure of Japan" in March 1952.

The books in the Oriental Library are mainly divided into eight categories in terms of languages: first, Chinese documents, among which historical books, especially local chronicles and genealogy, are unique in foreign libraries. Second, Tibetan literature; Third, Mongolian literature; Fourth, Manchu literature; 5. European and American language documents; 6. Korean literature; Seven. Vietnamese literature; Eight, Japanese literature. Since its establishment, the collection of documents and materials has expanded by more than 20 times. Before the war, the sources of these books mainly depended on Japanese armed aggression against China and looting in China, Korea, Indian zhina and other places supported by East and South Asia. For example, during the period from 193 1 to 1936, they hired thieves to steal a copy of Tanjul (103), a copy of Ganjul (102), 225 kinds of Mongolian Tibetan scriptures and their Tibetan mothers. Another example is1April, 936. In Shanghai, 2402 red-flag documents (data from Yongzheng to the late Qing Dynasty) were stolen (the number of books is unknown). These documents laid the foundation for the Oriental Library to study Northeast China and Tibet (so-called "Manchuria Studies" and "Tibetan Studies"). At that time, there were some donated books, but the donated materials were obtained by the donors themselves through extreme measure. For example, Fujita Toyohachi, director of the Department of Literature and Politics of Imperial University of Taipei at that time, presented 2 1669 volumes 1765 kinds of Japanese-Chinese documents to the Oriental Library, and a considerable part of them were obtained from Taiwan Province Province about the Gaoshan nationality and the red fish in Taiwan Province Province of China. 1932, Ikumiya Iwasaki himself also sent 23,777 Chinese books collected at home to the library. After Yoshiri Oda's Masunosuke died in 1936, his private collection of 1948 1 was also included in the Oriental Library, except for some purchases by donors. After the war, things changed. Oriental Library mainly buys and sends experts to relevant departments and countries to identify the documents of relevant departments of Orientalism, and copies and collects them. For example, in the 1960s, the unpublished part of Dunhuang documents collected by pelliot in the French National Library was photographed, and the late Professor Kazuo Muxia of the University of Tokyo was sent to Spain and Portugal by the Oriental Library several times to investigate the unpublished ancient books of relevant departments in China before the19th century.

At the beginning of the establishment of Oriental Library, in addition to the book department, the research department system was established, and part-time or full-time researchers were hired from the Oriental Library to edit and publish magazines and series such as Memoirs of the Research Department of Oriental Books in the Oriental Library, Minutes of the Oriental Library, Wen (that is, Journal of Oriental Studies), On the Oriental Library and On Owen in the Oriental Library. The research department has research committees on Dunhuang literature, Tibet, Central Asia and Islam. Among them, the Dunhuang Literature Research Committee compiled the First Draft of the Classified Catalogue of Chinese Documents Unearthed in the Western Regions and the Collection of Social and Economic Documents in Dunhuang and Turpan, and the Tibet Research Committee compiled the Catalogue of Solving Problems in Stan-Tibetan Documents 12. 196 1 year, at the request of UNESCO, the East Asian Cultural Research Center was attached to the library. This is the biggest difference between it and other Japanese libraries, and it is also an important reason why Oriental Library will enjoy a good reputation in Japanese academic circles in the future.