Asian and African areas have always been considered a mainstay field of research in area studies in Japan. However, when it comes to the materials required to further studies, a centre for documentation with an emphasis on Asian and African languages has yet to be established in Japan. Regrettably, the existing institutions that store documentation pertaining to Asian and African area studies only serve a limited purpose in both the content of the documentation stored and their functions. Up to now, there has been no institution in Japan capable of acting as a counterpart to such renowned institutions in the field of storing, sharing, and disseminating historical documentation for Asian and African studies as the British Library, the American Library of Congress, and the Center for Research Libraries in Chicago. TUFS has an outstanding number of books and documents on Asian and African languages and a great deal of expertise and experience in collecting additional documentation in this field. It can therefore be confidently stated that TUFS has the largest potential for becoming the centre for documentation that Japan so richly deserves.