Milwaukee Public Library Holds Rare Japanese and Chinese Books Exhibit

While thousands of people were engaging with Japanese culture at Anime Milwaukee on Saturday, others were engaging with Japanese history just two blocks away at Milwaukee Public Libraries’ Central location.

To capitalize on the occasion, MPL had a showing of some the rare Japanese and Chinese books in their collection. Most of the books on display were collections of Japanese wood block prints, which suited the exhibit more than traditional literary works.

One of the flashiest items on display were some of Hokusai’s Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji. MPL has 36 of the 46 woodblock prints. MPL’s copies are likely also forgeries, although Tim Rush, the librarian in charge of the collection, points out that the bootlegger was closer to the creation of his forgeries than Hokusai was to his officials.

Another memorable piece was Rush’s favorite, an accordion-bound scrapbook of 89 different wood block prints. The book opens with a depiction of the legendary actor Ichikawa Danjûrô VIII greeting an audience, and ends with a death print of his suicide.

“It starts with him saying hello, and it ends with him saying goodbye, so unofficially I call it the Danjûrô Scrapbook,” Rush said.

Rush spent a year digitizing and researching the scrapbook, going as far to have whole websites translated from Japanese to English. The book is now available on MPLs website to view from home.

The showing was in the Richard E. & Lucile Krug Rare Books Room, where MPL keeps their items that need the most preservation. The climate-controlled room is kept at a stable 68 degrees, 40 to 50 percent relative humidity and typically in the dark.

 “Sunlight is absolutely the biggest enemy of Ink,” said Rush.

Despite this, Rush likes to put on public showings like this relatively frequently. Anyone can go in and view the collection via appointment, but Rush sees the exhibits as an opportunity to show more people what the library has to offer.

“The goal is to share those treasures with the public,” Rush said, “because that’s the reason why a public library has these collections.”

MPL does not have a specific definition of what should be preserved, just items that would benefit from extra preservation efforts. In some cases, this means old and historic books. For example, MPL is one of only 13 public institutions to have a complete set of Audubon’s Birds of America.

While the collection contains broadly historic books like this, MPL focuses on local history primarily. Within the collection is a series of famous autographs sold to fund raise for a civil war monument. Some are more recent however, such as their collection of 1980s concert posters from Milwaukee concerts.

The most recent additions to the collection are zines from the library’s biggest yearly event Milwaukee Zine Fest. A selection of these zines are then put into the rare books collection as a piece of continuously growing local history.

The rare books room will be open again on April 19 for Zine Fest, but this may be the last it is opened to the public for the year. Last year they put on five events showing off the collection, but after the room’s reduction from three staff members to just Rush, the future is less certain.

That said, Rush is still dedicated to the collection and sharing it with the public.

“Our goal is to keep these treasures so that other folks can enjoy them for years and decades to come,” Rush said. “What we try to keep here is the stuff that will enrich folks.”