Brown University: John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Library

About the library:

The John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Library, known colloquially as The Rock, serves as the primary library for the humanities, social sciences, and fine arts. It houses several labs, data centers, and special collections, including the East Asian Collection. The library was founded as early as 1767 by a donation from the president.

Originally held under the title the Gardner Collection, the East Asian Collection began with a donation in 1961 of primarily Chinese-language books by Charles Sidney Gardner, a noted Sinologist from Harvard University. With the addition of Japanese and Korean texts in the early 1980s, the collection was expanded to include East Asia in general.

For more information concerning the Japanese collections, please contact Li Wang at (401) 863-9344 or via email.

Collection size: as of December 2014

The John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Library houses approximately 1.2 million physical volumes, of which approximately 25,000 are in Japanese. Of the approximately 200,000 serials maintained by the library, 30 are in Japanese.

The Rockefeller Library's collections focus primarily on the humanities, social sciences, and fine arts. The Japanese collection in particular is strong in Japanese literature, philosophy, history, religion, and art history.

While the Rockefeller Library is accessible by the public during specified hours, late-night use and borrowing privileges are limited to Brown ID holders. Building access cards and borrowing cards may be purchased for different periods of time. For more information, please visit their Library Visitor Guidelines page, linked below.

For all comments and questions about the Guide, please e-mail us:

mlaguide@nccjapan.net