Japanese book catalogs online

[Emoni]

I've been recommended and entirely agree with the next major step in my Japanese language education is to begin working the hardest I can towards reading books. There is a lot to be said for the educational power of reading in English, let alone for a secondary language I'm sure.

For this purpose I'm wondering if those on hear know of Japanese catalogs of scanned/printed material online. For example, major works (and MODERN books, not old Japanese) that are in text online. I knew of one wonderful resource before that was run by an east coast college but I have lost the link a year ago. I don't think it was the University of Virginia but maybe someone knows what I'm referring to?

My hope is to find modern material and read as much as possible with the help of tools like rikai-chan to limit slowdown. Not sure how well this will work of course, but I have yet to try beyond Mixi posts which just don't have that "story" behind them that books do as you might expect.
Thank you.

 

[epigene]

Others will probably have better links, but my 2 yen worth while I still remember...

ARIADNE Japanese-related links

I've checked some and found that quite a few of text pages (for contemporary literature) are down, most likely because Japanese government and organizations have stepped up action on copyright infringement. But, you might get lucky!

Entertaining read by a famous copywriter, Itoi Shigesato:
ほぼ日刊イトイ新聞
Informative and entertaining, combined with quality writing, not by amateurs but professional writers.

HTH!