[1] He was directly responsible for developing the Japanese language and literature collection at Columbia's library.

[2] Prominent among the former-students who credit his influence as formative is Donald Keene,[3] who had himself become a later Dean of Japanese studies in the United States.

Tsunoda was the youngest of seven children born to a family of peasants in Japan.

He studied at Waseda University, and later developed interest in the United States.

[4] Keene's own perspective on Tsunoda was expressed in a lecture given at Waseda University in 1994: In an overview of writings by and about Tsunoda, OCLC/WorldCat lists roughly 50 works in 100+2 publications in 4 languages and 2,000+ library holdings.