Special Collections Database

Our team has formed a database specifically for rare Bibles and generally for all special collection items related to this project. This database includes editions from the main library at AGU and also from all libraries on both our Shibuya and Sagamihara campuses. The featured books in these collections are:

Biblia Latina (1478, Aoyama Gakuin Archives)

Biblia Sacra (1662, Aoyama Gakuin Archives)

A Part of Hebrew Bible Scrolls (16 century, Aoyama Gakuin)

Novum Testamentum (1539, Aoyama Gakuin Archives)

Testamenti Novi (1539, Aoyama Gakuin Archives)

Die Bibel nach Martin Luther (2017, Aoyama Gakuin University Library)

The Holy Bible: containing the Old and New Testaments, with the apocryphal books, in the earliest English versions made from the Latin vulgate by John Wycliffe and his followers (1850, Aoyama Gakuin Archives)

Other rare editions are available from any web browser search or find function in our comprehensive database of the rare holdings in all AGU libraries.

Project Team

Our project team in Tokyo began our work in conjunction with the Digital Access team at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C. The project has enjoyed the gracious assistance of the staff at the Aoyama Gakuin Shiryo (Archives) Center. We are also closely aligned with the Aoyama Gakuin Christian Activities Center at our university, which supports a non-discriminatory and ecumenical approach to religious worship. The technical effort we are using to transition rare books into open-access digital editions is not unlike the work of early printers in the 15th and 16th centuries, who used moveable type to reproduce and distribute works that were only in manuscript form. In our age, we are faced with the challenge of making these early editions accessible to all, an effort that requires hours of hands-on work and great care. Team Members Thomas Dabbs, Co-Director Professor Dabbs serves on the faculty of English and American Literature at AGU, where he teaches Shakespeare

The Project and Our Continuing Mission

The AGU Digital Access Project provides online access to special collections held by Aoyama Gakuin University in Tokyo, with a focus on digitizing rare bibles and other religious editions within our library system. This project was begun in 2018 with support from the Aoyama Vision Initiative in conjunction with the Folger library 's digital access team in Washington, D.C. We also collaborated with the Aoyama Gakuin Religious Center and with the help and kind cooperation of the university Shiryo (Archives) Center, which curates many of these books. Though our progress was halted for a period by the Covid 19 pandemic, we are now moving forward with generous support from the Aoyama Gakuin University Information Media Center and the University’s Institute of the Humanities. Biblia Latina (1478) The Aoyama Gakuin Archives along with the university library system hold many items of historical significance, including rare print editions of religious works in Latin, Japanese, Englis

Biblia Latina (1478)

The AGU digital access team has digitized the 15th-century Bible Hieronymi , or Biblia Latina, from the Aoyama Archive. This edition is an early print version of Jerome's Vulgate. A full list of references to this edition and holdings may be viewed at the British Library's Incunabula Short Title Catalogue . Professor Shinichi Takeuchi of the AGU Department of English has studied this edition. Below is a translation of his commentary on this work: " From the mid-15th century, when Gutenberg began utilizing mechanical movable type, to the time when printing became prevalent at the turn of the 16th century, this is a special period in the history of the book. Books printed during this early period of moveable type are called incunabula . This is a crucial period that saw a transition from hand-transcription to a new era of reproducing texts with mechanical movable type presses. Within just half a century, upwards to potentially 40,000 titles and 12 million copies of

AGU Digital Access Project