Japan Studies: Libraries and Archives in the US

First of the presidential libraries. The Library maintains over 17 million pages of documents, 150,000 audiovisual items, and 50,000 books.
Digitized documents on the Japanese American Internment and the Pearl Harbor can be viewable.

One of the finest Asian art libraries in the United States, the library holds over 80,000 volumes. About half of these publications are in Chinese or Japanese.

Holds Japanese language newspapers, magazines, maps and monographs published during the immediate postwar period.

Preserves the papers, books, and other historical materials relating to former President Harry S. Truman. It holds about 15,000,000 pages of manuscript materials.
The website has Online documents (including Decision to Drop the Atomic Bomb), Online Photographs and Audio Online.

The Japanese modern history manuscript collection contains holdings of archival materials relating to various aspects of Japanese history.
The Kōshikan records relate to the Japanese occupation of Korea.
The Rikugun records contain a rich body of Japanese military surveys of lands, buildings, and other assets seized by the Japanese from China during World War II.

Maintains the collection on Japan, an international exchange, and publication of the Japan Foundation to provide an extensive information services on these topics.

Promotes greater understanding and networking between Americans and Japanese through its many cultural, public affairs, and educational programs.

First museum in U.S dedicated to sharing the experience of Americans of Japanese ancestry as an integral part of U.S. history. The museum has permanent collection of over 60,000 unique artifacts, documents, and photographs.

Covers research materials in virtually all subjects except clinical medicine and technical agriculture. The Japanese collection, probably the most extensive in the world outside Japan, has grown to over 1.15 million books and serial volumes, 10,100 reels of microfilm, and 15,000 sheets of microfiche.

Contains General MacArthur's original collection. The archives hold some 2 million documents, 86,000 photographs, 130 photograph albums, and 111 motion picture films in addition to sound recordings, newspapers, rare books, scrapbooks, and microfilms.
This is a non-lending reference and research library.

Independent Federal agency that preserves and oversees the management of all Federal records. A sizable portion of NARA's holding's may be searched online in the Archival Research Catalog (ARC).
*For the guide and significant collections, see the right column on this page.

The Presidential Library system is composed of 13 Presidential Libraries administrated by the National Archives. The system includes Herbert Hoover Library, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Harry S. Truman Library, Dwight D. Eisenhower Library, John F. Kennedy Library, Lyndon B. Johnson Library, Richard Nixon Library, Gerald R. Ford Library, Jimmy Carter Library, Ronald Reagan Library, George H. W. Bush Library, William J. Clinton Library, George W. Bush Library.

Guide of the collection which incorporates descriptive information about federal records acquired by the National Archives after the 1995 paper edition went to press, and it is regularly updated to reflect new acquisitions of federal records.

If you search for documents on the U.S.-Japan Foreign Relations, you should check the documents by the Department of State, which can mainly be found in Record Group (RG) 59 and RG84.
RG59 collects General Records of the Department of State.
RG84 holds Records of the Foreign Service Posts of the Department of State.
To search, type the RG number in the box of "Go to Record Group #:."

The documents related to the Allied Occupation of Japan can be found under 331.36, General Records of General Headquarters Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (GHQ SCAP) of RG331.

The documents on the bodies are found in RG43.
Allied Council for Japan was an international body charged with advising the Supreme Commander Allied Powers, Gen. Douglas MacArthur, on the occupation of Japan (43.11.27 Records of the U.S. Element of the Allied Council for Japan).
Far Eastern Commission was established at the Tripartite Foreign Ministers meeting in Moscow to control Japan during the Allied Occupation (43.11.23 Records relating to the Far Eastern Commission (FEC)).

The Nazi War Crimes and Japanese Imperial Government Records Interagency Working Group (IWG) locates, identifies, inventories, and recommends for declassification, currently classified U.S. records relating to Nazi and Japanese Imperial Government war crimes.

Documents on Okinawa under the U.S. administration can be found in 260.12, Records of the U.S. Civil Administration of the Ryukyu Islands (USCAR) 1945-72.