The Arthur Tress Collection of Japanese Illustrated Books includes over 1,400 titles dating from the late 17th century through the 1930s. Genres in the collection include popular illustrated books, such as novels, guidebooks, and theater books; deluxe limited-edition poetry, erotica, and artist-centered books; exquisite editions of books on kimono design; and many others. There are examples of every book genre produced and printed in Japan.
The East Asia Comics Collection embodies the Libraries’ strategic priorities to collect and preserve global voices, and to make accessible materials related to borders and belonging.
The Penn Libraries is actively expanding its collection of children’s and young adult literatures with the goal of privileging diverse voices, cultures, and perspectives. Recently, an internal collection development grant enabled the Libraries to narrow in on juvenile literatures that focus on immigrant and refugee communities in the United States.
Penn has the most extensive single collection in the world of adventure stories from the late Meiji and Taishō periods.
The Naval Collection focuses on the Meiji through early Shōwa periods, and is especially strong in materials related to the training fleet (renshū kantai 練習艦隊).
The Penn Libraries collects a variety of Japanese rare materials, including but not limited to books, periodicals, scrapbooks, limited-circulation newspapers, manuscripts, photographs, and art prints.
The Penn Libraries is actively growing our Japanese Women Photographers Collection, reflecting a vast range of artistic and social visions by Japanese women who may or may not have had a visible platform during their active years as photographers.
Because of longstanding collection strengths in area studies as well as because of disciplinary trends recognizing philosophers outside of the traditional western canon, the Penn Libraries have a significant amount of material relating to philosophy and philosophers in East Asia, South Asia, the Middle East and Africa.