The Collège de France's Japanese Studies Library holds a fine collection of works, archives and manuscripts by botanist Hippolyte de Castillon (1830-1898), acquired in the 1990s. Hippolyte de Castillon taught himself Japanese so that he could read treatises on cultivation imported from Japan, one of his ambitions being to start a silkworm farm. With the support of the Centre de recherche sur les civilisations de l'Asie orientale (CRCAO) and Université Paris-Cité, the library has digitized a significant part of this collection. Several dozen documents are now available online on Salamandre.

Libraries and archives