Bridging Global Access to Japanese Art

The National Art Center, Tokyo is engaged in the “JAC (Japan Art Catalog) Project,” donating Japanese exhibition catalogs—often hard to obtain outside Japan—to international institutions specializing in Japanese art research. Initiated in 1995, even before the NACT’s opening, the project involves donating catalogs from Japanese art museums and other related institutions across Japan to four overseas institutions.
The exhibition catalogs sent overseas are valuable resources for Japanese studies, and information about these materials is now available in the online library catalogs of the four recipient institutions and through the global online union library catalog. In addition to the four institutions, these catalogs are also widely accessed by other institutions through the interlibrary loan (ILL) service.

On the far end of the Art Library on the third floor (on the right side of the shelf), you can find the collection of Japanese art exhibition catalogs that were donated to the NACT by the participating institutions as a return gift. Visitors are encouraged to explore these catalogs, another benefit of this cultural exchange program!