Tomorrow, I will be sharing information about library resources with some of our MA students in OSU’s interdisciplinary program in East Asian Studies. My colleague, Chinese and Korean Studies Librarian, Professor Guoqing Li, will join me in covering some of our key library materials.

I made a handout (page 1, pictured left) focusing mostly on Japanese Studies resources, but also on broad topics like Copyright, Interlibrary services. and Zotero, which are instrumental for grad students, university instructors, and other scholars.

My plan is to distribute this handout to the MA students, but here is a digital version for anyone who’d like a copy. In addition, I’ve typed the contents of the handout below for added accessibility.

1. WorldCat = World Catalog

This online catalog helps researchers locate books (and other resources, like articles, movies, some art, maps, etc.) in English or the vernacular anywhere in the world. This database lists over 2.7 billion items worldwide.
Two options for using WorldCat:
• worldcat.org (The free, generic version, which searches materials anywhere in the world)
• osu.on.worldcat.org (The OSU version of WorldCat, which offers the same information, but displays OSU materials first.)

2. CiNii

This is the Japanese “Scholarly and Academic Information Navigator” (pronounced like “sigh-knee”) Database Service. This tool combines three major databases

• “CiNii Research” (https://cir.nii.ac.jp/ ) enables you to search not only information on academic articles and research activities in Japan. (e.g., research data and project information. (“CiNii Articles” was integrated into CiNii Research in April 2022.)
• “CiNii Books” (https://ci.nii.ac.jp/books/en/ ) to search books and journals held by university libraries in Japan.
• “CiNii Dissertations” (https://ci.nii.ac.jp/d/en/ ) to search information on dissertations written for doctoral degrees in Japan.

3. Inter Library Services (https://library.osu.edu/ill) =

At OSU, like at most other research libraries, this service has 3 major components:

  1. InterLibrary Loan (ILL) (which helps researchers borrow books and other materials from other institutions)
  2. Article Express (which delivers articles in PDF format from journals held by other libraries), and
  3. ILLiad is the online account, which anyone at OSU can create, where users can request materials from ILL and Article Express.

4. Copyright Services

OSU Libraries’ offers very robust copyright services, including consultations with legal experts as well as an elaborate web site that covers everything from Fair Use, to Open Access and Small Claims. For newcomers just starting to learn about the world of copyright, I recommend OSU’s Library Guide on the topic (available at https://library.osu.edu/copyright/basics). Of particular note in this guide are the pages/sections on

5. OSU Japanese Studies Library Guide

As the Japanese Studies Librarian at OSU, I maintain an expansive Library Guide (sometimes called “LibGuide” or “resource page”), which you can get to at go.osu.edu/JapaneseStudies. This site offers support for finding resources in numerous disciplines and formats, like how to access Japanese language journals, online Japanese language newspaper archives, and Art Databases featuring Japanese artists, to name only a few.

6. Two Dedicated Japanese Studies Blogs

In addition to the Japanese Studies LibGuide, I maintain two blog sites. These not only help us share news and information about new, distinctive or rare holdings, but they are contain numerous “how to” guides for accessing and using some of our libraries new and unique databases. These 2 blogs are:

  1. The Japanese Collections Blog at go.osu.edu/JapaneseCollection described new acquisitions, e-resources, databases and special collections (The web page you are reading now is in fact my latest post on this Japanese Collections blogging site.)
  2. The Manga Blog at go.osu.edu/manga covers new or distinctive manga acquisitions, manga donations, and/or themed articles that take a closer look at some our collections organized by genre, artists, and/or demographics.

7. Japan Knowledge Database

Speaking of new and unique databases, I think the most powerful service that our library subscribes to is a “mega database” (my word) called Japan Knowledge, which you can access with the link: go.osu.edu/JapanKnowledge. The makers of Japan Knowledge describe this massive search engine as “an online web archive that boasts the largest corpus of encyclopedia, dictionaries, reference compilations, and periodical resources (approximately 50 different sources) in Japan.”

8. (Japanese) Film and Media at OSU

This part of the list actually involves two different ways to find movies. A lot of students want to know about this not just for teaching, or perhaps research, but also for just kicking back and relaxing. In my opinion, the easiest ways to find and access OSU’s tremendous collection of streaming videos and other media-related resources is to go to:

  1. The Film Studies LibGuide at https://guides.osu.edu/FilmStudies (For Streaming video, click “Streaming Film” tab under “Film Resources” in this guide). (And don’t forget to check out the  “Requests” box and form on the right panel of this LibGuide. You can use this if you want to request a film that’s not yet available).
  2. And, of course, the Japanese Library Guide (go.osu.edu/JapaneseStudies, mentioned already above), which has dedicated resource pages, or “specialty” tabs, focused entirely on manga, anime, music, TV, and more.

9. And last but not least: Zotero.

This is an open source citation software that I highly recommend for managing any of the materials that might inform your research, teaching, and beyond. This tool is like EasyBib, because it generates bibliographies or works cited for you in various styles (MLA, Chicago, etc.) as needed. But going beyond EasyBib, Zotero is for researchers who need personal software that provides “next-level” data storage and management. If you have a project that involves, let’s say, 50 or more sources and that requires complex bibliographical note keeping, Zotero is your answer. (This tool is so powerful that I have used it myself to create the bibliography for my PhD dissertation, my first book publication, and ongoing research and library projects). As you can tell, I totally recommend it for advanced students of East Asian Studies, especially because it can handle various languages and scripts, including Japanese kana and kanji.

I could do a whole workshop on Zotero, but for tomorrow, in the absence of time, I won’t reinvent the wheel. Here are a couple of good “How to” Videos about this amazing resource already posted on YouTube:

By the way, after reading this blog, you may have figured out that we librarians like our LibGuides. I mention this here because I’d like to recommend ISU Libraries’ guide on Zotero, if you’d like more info and guides on how to use it.

In sum, Hopefully this short blog has offered some helpful tools and tidbits for new and seasoned researchers alike. But, if you have questions or would like more information about these or any other type of  resource, please don’t hesitate to get in touch! My name is Ann Marie Davis, I’m the Japanese Studies Librarian, and the best way to reach me is by email at davis.5257@osu.edu.