Website (English): https://agudigitalprojecten.blogspot.com
Website (Japanese): https://agudigitalproject.blogspot.com

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.

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, English, and other languages. The special holdings of the AGU libraries are one of the finest collections of rare Christian editions in Japan. We also host speakers and schedule events, in person and online, that are related to digital development in library science, religion and early modern studies (with a focus on Shakespeare).

This effort is advanced by a Project Team, that works to digitize and catalogue, page by page and with detailed annotations, our special holdings. We owe an enormous thanks to the staff of the Aoyama Gakuin Shiryo Center for their help with this project. We are also working closely with the Aoyama Gakuin Christian Activities Center, which supports a non-discriminatory and ecumenical approach to religious worship.