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Dienstag, 17. April 2018

LoC Blog: Unique Collection of Censored Japanese Books

The Library’s Asian Division has digitized an archive comprising more than 1,000 marked-up copies of monographs and galley proofs censored by the Japanese government in the 1920s and 1930s. The Japanese Censorship Collection reveals traces of an otherwise-hidden censorship process through marginal notes, stamps, penciled lines and commentary inscribed by the censors’ own hands.
Each of these books is “uniquely different from all other existing copies and editions of similar titles in Japan and elsewhere, making this collection a rich archive here at the Library of Congress for the historical study of censorship,” said Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden.
In prewar World War II Japan, the Home Ministry was among the most powerful of government entities. Not only was it tasked with censoring publications, it also held jurisdiction over police, infrastructure, elections, public health and religious affairs. Following Japan’s defeat, the ministry’s censorship library was seized by the Allied forces and sent to the Washington Document Center in the United States.
It was later transferred to the Library of Congress, along with massive volumes of books and other materials requisitioned from other official institutions, including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Japanese Imperial Army and the South Manchurian Railway Company. The Library digitized the Japanese Censorship Collection in collaboration with Japan’s National Diet Library. ... [mehr] https://blogs.loc.gov/loc/2018/04/new-online-unique-collection-of-censored-japanese-books/

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