Ohio State University Libraries’ manga collection continues to grow each year. Currently we have over 20,000 volumes, and we boast the largest collection of manga in the world outside of Japan. We have subscriptions to current popular manga serials and academic manga journals (which are not included in our counts below), and we also continue to collect rare and historical manga.
Records for these works are all available in the Ohio State University Libraries catalog. A browsable search is currently available by searching on keyword=manga and location =Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum, for example, or keyword=manga and location =Thompson. Each year, we conduct an analysis on the number of volumes in our collections. The latest results are as follow:
2018 – 23,033
2017 – 22,811
2016 – 22,449
2015 – 22,304
2014 – 19,843
2012 -17,938
2011 – 17,399
2010 – 16,265
2009 – 15,462
2008 – 13,021
Note: Before 2012, the manga collection was held almost exclusively in the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum. Since then, we have offered increased access to our more current manga by moving publications after 1989 into general circulation available through Thompson Library, the Fine Arts Library, and the OSU Library Depository.
OSU Library’s formidable Japanese Studies Librarian, Maureen Donovan (now retired), started collecting Japanese manga in the mid-80s, but we don’t have figures until 1999. For data that dates even further back into the past, please see Maureen’s blog from 2012.
