Takamitsu Yamamoto: Encountering the "Books That Changed the World"

2023/05/19

It was in a room where rare books in leather bindings were lined up on wooden bookshelves built from floor to ceiling that I found myself dazed, unintentionally muttering, "I want to live here..." The room houses books from the 15th century, when letterpress printing was first put into practical use in Europe. The collection is centered on what we now call natural science and engineering.

That collection is called the "Dawn of Engineering Collection." It is a major collection that Kanazawa Institute of Technology takes great pride in. In the early summer of 2018, I visited its storage facility as a participant in a press tour.

Let's list a few examples from the collection: Euclid's "Elements" (1482), Aristotle's "Complete Works in Greek" (1495–1498), Nicolaus Copernicus's "On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres" (1543), Johannes Kepler's "New Astronomy" (1609), Galileo Galilei's "Starry Messenger" (1610), René Descartes's "Principles of Philosophy" (1644), Robert Hooke's "Micrographia" (1665), and Isaac Newton's "Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy" (1687). All are first editions. In the case of "On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres," this means the exact edition published in 1543, the year Copernicus died. These are truly rare books that cannot be acquired simply by paying money.

Furthermore, moving closer to the modern era, the collection also includes papers by figures such as James Clerk Maxwell, Marie Skłodowska-Curie, Erwin Schrödinger, Albert Einstein, and Werner Karl Heisenberg.

How on earth does one go about building such a collection? In that library, as I held the books and turned the pages, I was struck by wave after wave of surprise.

It was about 40 years ago, in 1982, that a new library center was established at Kanazawa Institute of Technology, and the "Dawn of Engineering Collection" was opened at the same time. Mr. Gyo Chiku (1942–2020), an architectural historian and then-associate professor at the university, established the acquisition policy and built this collection. The policy was to exclude manuscripts and focus on first editions of printed books published after the establishment of letterpress printing, and to collect books (including papers) considered important in the history of science and technology. The collection now numbers 2,000 volumes.

In addition to collecting, Kanazawa Institute of Technology has actively worked to utilize these books. When the "Dawn of Engineering Collection" was first opened, Mr. Kenzo Nihanda, who was in charge of university public relations, thought, "I want to utilize these wonderful items for PR." He worked tirelessly, leading to the 1988 exhibition "Books That Changed the World" at the National Museum of Nature and Science's Japan Pavilion. It was an excellent project that served as PR for the university and provided visitors with a rare experience.

However, for a while after that, there were no opportunities to exhibit the books from the "Dawn of Engineering Collection." The next exhibition of the same name took place twenty-some years later in 2010, at the Citizen's Gallery of the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa. The new "Books That Changed the World" exhibition was a project supervised by Mr. Gyo Chiku, who built the collection, with Mr. Tomohiro Miyashita, an architecture professor at the university, and his undergraduate and graduate students handling the design and composition of the venue, and Mr. Nihanda serving as the general producer.

In the exhibition, about 140 rare books are selected from the "Dawn of Engineering Collection." They are arranged in a space called the "Wall of Knowledge," consisting of bookshelves that invite visitors from the entrance, and beyond that, a corner called the "Forest of Knowledge," where important related books are displayed in 13 sections such as "Force and Weight," "Light and Color," "Electricity and Magnetism," and "Flight" (the 2022 Kanazawa exhibition had 14 sections). While walking through this space, visitors trace the history of natural science and engineering from ancient times to the present while looking at actual books produced in each era.

Following the success of this exhibition, it toured various locations: Nagoya in 2013, Osaka in 2015, Tokyo in 2018, and Fukuoka in 2019. In 2022, a triumphant return exhibition was held in Kanazawa for the first time in 10 years. The Tokyo exhibition held at The Ueno Royal Museum in 2018 won the Science Journalist Award Grand Prize, organized by the Japanese Association of Science & Technology Journalists, the following year.

Now, the story returns to the beginning.

When I said, "I want to live here..." I was just a visitor to the "Dawn of Engineering Collection." Certainly, after that preview, I spoke and wrote about the "Books That Changed the World" in magazines such as "Nikkei Science" (Nikkei Science, Inc.) and "Idea" (Seibundo Shinkosha).

Also, for the "Books That Changed the World" Tokyo exhibition held at The Ueno Royal Museum that autumn, I was invited to appear on a program called "Let's Tour the [Books That Changed the World] Exhibition" on the "Niconico Museum" channel of the video streaming service "Niconico Douga." I had the opportunity to walk through the exhibition venue and explain the books on display alongside Ms. Mari Hashimoto, who frequently appears on the channel as a renowned moderator.

I believe the reason such an offer came to me, even though I am not an expert in the history of science, is that I have been researching and writing about the history of scholarship across various fields. If I were asked what my specialty is, it would be game development, which has been my job for many years since graduating from university.

On the other hand, while writing programs and coming up with game ideas through that work, I continued to collect and read literature whenever a theme caught my interest, and I would go to learn a language if it was necessary. That said, I didn't have a goal like "I'm going to do this in the future." I simply wanted to read Aristotle's works or lecture notes, or Newton's "Principia," not just in translation but, if possible, in the languages they were written in at the time (Ancient Greek or Latin). Or, in the case of Meiji-era Japan, I wanted to read things that are now difficult to decipher, such as Nishi Amane's "Hyakugaku Renkan" (The Encyclopedia) or Natsume Soseki's "Theory of Literature," with my own eyes. I did these things each time without being asked by anyone, simply because it was fun.

Looking back, including my work at game companies, many of the things I did because I loved them ended up becoming my work later through some twist of fate. Lately, I've come to think that life might just be like that.

Then, for the "Books That Changed the World" exhibition held in Kanazawa in 2022, I served as a supervisor alongside Ms. Mari Hashimoto and ended up writing the official exhibition catalog, "Books That Changed the World" (Shogakukan).

The reason this happened was that in 2019, through Mr. Nihanda, I was invited by Kanazawa Institute of Technology to work on considering the utilization of the books in the "Dawn of Engineering Collection." When I first stepped into the collection, I hadn't the slightest inkling that such a thing would happen in the future. Since then, while I obviously cannot live in the rare book storage facility, I visit from time to time to engage with the books for collection research and exhibition preparation.

Particularly in the summer of 2022, while writing the official catalog, there was something I realized once again. In writing the bibliographic information and content commentary for the approximately 90 books featured in the volume, I went back and looked at those books in the collection firsthand. Today, many of them can be viewed in various online archives. So, what is the meaning of them being physical books now? I will focus on two points here.

For example, a 500-year-old book in front of me has, as a physical object, remained largely in its original form since the day it was printed and created, even if it has been slightly damaged or changed over time. When you open the pages, you see letters and illustrations fixed on paper with ink. On the other hand, what about the computers and the internet that we use so conveniently? For better or worse, they likely won't preserve their current form 500 years from now. In some cases, a webpage I read and referenced just the other day might be gone today. Even if it remains, it might have been rewritten into something else.

Anyone who has been involved with computers for a long time likely feels this deeply, but digital data is more fragile than one might think. Including the changes and degradation of hardware and software, environments and data are easily lost. In fact, having been involved with computers for about 40 years, I don't know how much data I have lost. In that respect, books are remarkably robust. Even in my own personal collection, things I acquired over 30 years ago when I was in middle or high school are still preserved in a readable form.

Secondly, the books in the "Dawn of Engineering Collection" often contain handwritten notes in the margins (called marginalia). A book is a replica created by printing, and multiple copies of the same thing exist. However, for example, once notes are written in the margins, it becomes a one-of-a-kind existence in this world. Even if one can view Aristotle's "Complete Works in Greek," printed in Aldus Manutius's workshop at the end of the 15th century, as digital images on the internet, the edition in the "Dawn of Engineering Collection" with its vast amount of handwritten notes currently only exists in the form of that specific book. Such things happen.

This is not a question of which is better, books or digital data. The two have different properties, and it is better to think about how to master the advantages of both.

By the way, the "Books That Changed the World" exhibition reached a milestone with the 2022 Kanazawa exhibition serving as a temporary finale. I would like to think about various next developments to convey the appeal of this wonderful collection.