Photo/Illutration A junior high school student visits the Yachimata municipal library on May 26 soon after it resumed operations with the lifting of restrictions on such facilities in Chiba Prefecture. (Masafumi Ueda)

Japan's literacy rate in the late Edo Period (1603-1867) appears to have been quite high in cities and rural provinces alike.

There were book lenders in the cities for people who could not afford to buy books. And in the provinces, villagers apparently borrowed books from wealthy farmers who owned sizable collections.

In "Nihon no Rekishi Bekkan Nihon Bunka no Genkei" (Japanese History Extra Volume: Model of Japanese Culture), historian Michio Aoki (1936-2013) discusses a book checkout ledger kept by a Kanto region book collector.

The most checked-out genre was "jitsuroku-mono" (works of nonfiction and "true records"), followed by "yomi-hon" or novels, according to the ledger.

Institutions akin to today's public libraries probably came into need in Japan much earlier than I thought.

Some things have to be lost before their value is truly appreciated, and libraries are among them.

Now, they are starting to reopen after the lifting of the government's state of emergency declaration.

I imagine that living with COVID-19 restrictions made many people crave books all the more. They could be purchased online, of course, but they were no substitute for library books.

The latter include volumes on shelves that somehow caught your attention, and titles recommended by the librarian for their timely content. And let's not forget shelves of just-returned books: You sometimes come across an unexpected find there.

Many libraries have resumed checkout service, but their reading rooms are still closed. It will be a while before libraries fully regain their intended function as venues where patrons can settle in and focus on reading.

Scholar of English literature Shigehiko Toyama uses a neighborhood library as his study.

"After 10 minutes, I become totally oblivious to the person sitting next to me, and I get completely engrossed in my work," Toyama wrote in an essay. "If there is anything I don't understand, the bookshelf is only 10 steps away."

Only a library can provide such an atmosphere of "richness" and pervasive quiet in our daily lives.

--The Asahi Shimbun, May 27

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Vox Populi, Vox Dei is a popular daily column that takes up a wide range of topics, including culture, arts and social trends and developments. Written by veteran Asahi Shimbun writers, the column provides useful perspectives on and insights into contemporary Japan and its culture.

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