University of Tsukuba Library was established in October 1973 (昭和48年) in conjunction with the opening of the university, and holds a large number of rare materials from both Japanese and Western traditions, including items inherited from its predecessors, such as Tokyo Normal School, Tokyo University of Literature and Science, and Tokyo University of Education.
Since 1998 (平成10年), part of these holdings has been digitized and displayed on Library Catalog (OPAC) result pages as the “University of Tsukuba Digital Library” (now available as “Digital Library (Legacy)”). On March 1, 2024 (令和6年), we launched this site—the University of Tsukuba Digital Collection—to integrate and provide access to the digitized materials to date. We will continue to add more images.

This site supports IIIF (International Image Interoperability Framework), a widely used international framework for sharing images. We will continue to explore publication methods that leverage IIIF’s strengths and to promote the use and reuse of digitized images.
On the Library website, we also continue to provide the Rare Books (Digitized Materials) (in Japanese) and the Personal Libraries and Collections. Please make use of these resources as well.

The digitized images in our holdings reproduce the source materials in the form in which they were originally published. Some images contain discriminatory or otherwise inappropriate expressions exactly as they appear in the original materials; they are presented in this manner to support research based on historical facts and do not imply endorsement of such expressions. Please use these materials with an understanding of the historical context in which they were created.

Secondary Use of Materials Published on This Site

For details, please see the following:
Permission of the Use of Library Materials (Publish/Broadcast/Post Online/Exhibit, etc.)

Viewing the Original Materials

When searching the catalog, items whose material type on the bibliographic record is “Japanese-bound old books (和装古書)” or “Rare” require an application to use. From the Digital Collection item’s detail page, you can open the catalog record for the item you are viewing via the URL listed under “OPAC URL of the Original Item.”
For procedures, please see:
How to Use... > Historic Materials > University of Tsukuba library own rare Japanese/western materials.