100 Years of Children's Bunko: People Connecting Children and Books

2019/04/24

About 25 years ago, when I was a student in the Department of Library and Information Science in the Faculty of Letters, I worked part-time at the Tokyo Children's Library. This library was founded based on four children's libraries in Tokyo, including the "Matsu-no-mi Bunko" established at her home by Ms. Kyoko Matsuoka, an honorary chairperson of the library and a children's literature scholar.

At this private library, which at first was just one of many fun part-time jobs, I ended up learning about the important role of public libraries. Ms. Matsuoka herself, after graduating from the Department of Library Science at Keio (at the time), studied library science at a graduate school in the United States and had experience working as a children's librarian in that country. From her writings, I learned that the thousands of public libraries in the United States select and purchase children's books based on strict standards, which as a result supports the children's book publishing market and simultaneously leads to an increase in its quality.

Although I had the goal of becoming a librarian in the future, I did not choose the path of becoming a librarian immediately, but instead went to study abroad at a graduate school's department of library science in Canada. After returning to Japan, I again did not become a librarian right away, but had the opportunity to work with Ms. Matsuoka for a limited period of four years on a survey of children's libraries.

Children's bunko are private libraries operated by volunteers. They are diverse, including those in private homes, community centers, inside supermarkets, and even those using decommissioned train cars. They increased rapidly from the 1960s and numbered nearly 5,000 in the 1980s.

Their existence can be confirmed from before the war; there was a library in a temple near the Akasaka Palace during the Meiji era, a library in a fishmonger's shop in Hirosaki City, Aomori Prefecture during the Taisho era, and a library that started in Nagasaki City, which had been turned into ruins by the atomic bomb. In every era, there were nameless people who opened small libraries for children.

Yukichi Fukuzawa introduced the European library system in "Things Western (Seiyō Jijō)," writing, "In the capitals of Western countries, there are libraries. They are called bibliothèques." In the approximately 150 years since then, Japanese libraries have developed not only through the government but also through the power of the people. I hope that many people will learn about this through this book.

Now, after completing my research on bunko, I finally became a librarian as originally intended. Today, keeping what I learned from Ms. Matsuoka in my heart, I connect children and books from a "public" standpoint.

100 Years of Children's Bunko: People Connecting Children and Books

Kiichiro Takahashi

Misuzu Shobo

344 pages, 3,000 yen (excluding tax)

*Affiliations and titles are as of the time of publication.