This spring, I met announcements of the loss of two great bibliophiles, who were irreplaceble for us who love books more than anything else.

The memorial event for Mr. Shiokawa Toshikazu (), the director of The Osaka Aoyama History & Literature Museum, was held on May 27th, and for Mr. Yoneyama Torataro (), director of Seikado Bunko Art Museum, on June 1st. Both events were met with a large attendance, and respect and gratitude for their acumen and insights in books recurred to me. In 1990s, after entering Heisei period, I have been fortunate enough to get acquainted closely with those two supreme experts and was given teaching directly. Now I feel the "tension" and "motivation" I had as one of their students are silently disappearing and endure the loneliness.

The Osaka Aoyama History & Literature Museum is located in a magnificent castle built in Heisei period, in front of Ichinotorii station of Nose line, Kawanishi-shi, Hyogo Pref., and is renowned for holding a national treasure "Tosa Nikki" and other top-level collection. Passionate collecting under Mr. Shiokawa's primary policy continued well into Heisei years, and so he could be called "the last collector of recent years". It is a real sorrow that I can no longer see him who loved books, conserved them, and conveyed to younger people the value of seeing genuine articles. I remember a deep impression that Mr. Shiokawa's expertise and foresight surprised the whole world when I provided to him the highest grade incunabula "Durandus 1459" (Duranti, Giullelmus, Rationale divinorum officiorum), evaluated as the best antique western classic now located in Japan.

It is widely admitted that a person like Mr. Yoneyama will never appear in the future. His authority in Chinese printing history is worldwide and his compilation of Daikanwa-jiten (the great dictionary of Chinese characters) with Mr. Morohashi Tetsuji is widely known as well. He also left numerous achievements through the first-class collections of Seikado Bunko, Japanese and Chinese antiquarian library established by the second-generation of Mitsubishi Zaibatsu, Iwasaki Yanosuke.

In the autumn of 1999, the Congress of International Association of Bibliophiles (IAB) was held in Japan and top-class bibliophiles such as collectors and bibliographers gathered and visited famous libraries in Japan. In the IAB official report which was published afterwards, Mr. Shiokawa and Mr. Yoneyama's achievements, expertise, passion dedicated to collecting cultural properties, personal characters and speeches were highly appraised, and the high standard of Japanese book collecting was thus admitted and proved. This was very honorable and proud also for us.

The word "bibliophile" is simply explained as "a person who loves and collects books" in dictionaries, but it seems there is more to it. It rather stand for a person who loves, collects, analyzes and conserves books, and dedicates all his might to enhance the value of books as cultural property.

Here, I would like to express my deepest respect for their great achievements and condolence on their passing away from the bottom of my heart.