PRESS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 27, 2006

CONTACT: Jennifer Hanna
301/405-9336
jhanna@umd.edu

CHILDREN'S BOOKS FROM UM LIBRARIES' PRANGE COLLECTION
ON EXHIBIT AT OSAKA MUSEUM OF HISTORY

College Park, MD – Japanese children's books published during and after World War II, part of the University of Maryland Libraries’ Gordon W. Prange Collection, are on exhibit at Japan’s Osaka Museum of History through August 28. The Prange Collection is the most comprehensive in existence of publications issued in Japan during the immediate post-World War II years, 1945-49.

“This is the tenth such exhibit of Prange Collection materials in Japan since the inaugural exhibition at Waseda University in 1998,” said Dr. Desider L. Vikor, Director of Collection Management and Special Collections for the University of Maryland Libraries, and a participant in this exhibit’s opening ceremony on June 14. “The University of Maryland is very pleased to bring these materials to a wider audience in Osaka and the Kansai region.”

The exhibit featuring items from the Prange Collection is hosted by the Osaka Museum of History and the Post-War 60 +1 Anniversary Project of Children’s Books and Culture, a group of Osaka scholars and researchers. Major funding for the exhibit has been made possible by the Center for Global Partnership, the Japan Foundation and the National Olympics Memorial Youth Center. The University of Maryland Libraries is the co-organizer of the exhibit.

The University of Maryland is the only nationally-ranked public university in the Baltimore/Washington area. With a total student enrollment approaching 40,000, the University is supported in its academic endeavors by the University of Maryland Libraries, a system comprised of eight libraries and more than three million volumes. The University of Maryland Libraries represent the largest library system in the state.

For more information on the University of Maryland Libraries, please visit www.lib.umd.edu