One of the “treasures” of Ohio State’s collections supporting research on the Japanese language is Nihongogaku ronsetsu shiryo 日本語学論説資料 or NRS (until 1987 its title was: Kokugogaku ronsetsu shiryo 国語学論説資料資料）. Ohio State University Libraries holdings of NRS begin with Volume 9 (1972-) and continue to the present.
The NRS series collects and reprints articles on the Japanese language published in the previous year in various academic journals and bulletins throughout Japan. Although most of the articles are in Japanese, in recent years a number of articles in other languages, notably English, have also been reprinted in NRS.
Using NRS has been tedious in the past, but now a digitized cumulative index is available. Annually a new CD-ROM covering the entire series from volume 1 to the present is being issued. This makes it much easier to identify articles that have been reprinted within this series. We received the index for volumes 1-38 a few months ago and the one for v. 1-39 has just come in.
The CD-ROM index is held in the Book Depository —
PL501 .K63333 Computer file — and can be checked out for research.
In addition the whole series is being made available in a digitized version. Beginning with Volume 39 (current volume), the Libraries will be receiving both the digitized version of the articles and the printed one. If the digitized version proves acceptable, the printed version may be cut in the future. Please send in comments on the acceptability of the CD-ROM version. (Not available yet as of June 28, 2005 but expected soon)
