Category: Resources (page 3 of 4)

Exploring Shashi (社史, Company Histories)

Nissin Food Product Shashi Outer Packaging

Shashi (社史, Company Histories) are the chronological accounts of a company or corporation, usually written in the form of a book. Their contents typically include information about a specific company’s  history, including its foundation, expansion, and changes of administration corresponding to historical shifts in politics and economics. They can also reflect many other aspects of a company’s history, such as the biographies of its administrative members, interviews with workers, exhibitions of historical documents, and special topics about technological improvements.

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Introducing the newly available Manchuria Daily News Online English Database

Introduction

Japanese Studies at OSU Libraries is pleased to announce that the Manchuria Daily News Database is now available to the university community through the OSU library catalog.  The newly acquired database offers full access to the complete digital text of the Manchuria Daily News newspaper, published from 1908 to 1940.  The database thus offers an English-language archives of a rare newspaper that once provided the official Japanese interpretation of its presence in China in the early twentieth century. 

 

Image of the Database Home Page

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Introducing The Oriental Economist Archives and Database

The Oriental Economist Digital Archives is the 6th database offered through JK Books at OSU.

 

Japanese Studies at OSU Libraries (OSUL) is proud to announce that The Oriental Economist Digital Archives is now open for OSU users.  It is the 6th database offered through JK Books at OSU, along with five other searchable databases. The Oriental Economist (TOE) was published by the Toyo Keizai Inc. (Toyo Keizai Shimposha:  東洋経済新報社) from 1934 to 1985. TOE was exceptional in the sense that, despite being a domestic magazine in Japan, it was written in English and intended for overseas readership.

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Spotlight Article: OSUL Collection of Tanikawa Shuntaro (谷川俊太郎)

One of the strengths of the Japanese Studies Collections at the Ohio State University Libraries is an extensive collection of  works and rare publications by world-acclaimed author TANIKAWA Shuntaro ( 谷川俊太郎). Tanikawa is Japan’s preeminent contemporary poet whose work has won over ten literary awards and can be found in Japanese textbooks across the nation. In addition to being a poet, he is also an acclaimed translator, picture book writer, and scriptwriter.

Much of Tanikawa’s work has already been translated and published in English, including his Floating the River in Melancholy, for which he won the American Book Award. His work in translating children’s literature, including Charles Shultz’s Peanuts comic strip, Mother Goose rhymes, and Swimmy by Leo Lionni,  garnered him a nomination for the Hans Christian Andersen award in 2008.  His worldwide stature and presence in literature has also made him a perennial contender for the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Shuntarō Tanikawa, 2015 by Círculo de traductores is licensed under CC0

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Introducing the Toyo Keizai Archives (東洋経済アーカイブズ)

The suite of 5 databases offered through JKBooks at OSU appears in the left margin. The Toyo Keizai Archives is listed at the bottom.

Japanese Studies at OSU Libraries (OSUL) is delighted to announce that the Toyo Keizai Archives (東洋経済アーカイブズ) has been added to our suite of online offerings. It is an extraordinary database of one of Japan’s oldest economic magazines and one of the three leading business magazines in Japan, along with Nikkei Business (日経ビジネス) and Weekly DIAMOND (週刊ダイヤモンド). The full-text, searchable digital archives includes 120 years of publications, or 58,000 issues, from the inaugural issue of November 15th, Meiji 28 (1895) to Heisei 27 (2015).

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Focus on Japan in WWII: Kōa Shingun Ezu Iri (興亜進軍絵図入)

Interior of aerogram depicting Japanese battles in the Pacific

On February 14th, I wrote a blog introducing the Pearl Harbor Exhibit that was hung last winter in commemoration of the 75th anniversary of Pearl Harbor (December 7, 2016). In order to showcase the Japanese military perspective, the exhibit included a very special document, a fold-up aerogram that was made by the Japanese wartime government.  The present blog will feature that document, known as gunji yūbin (軍事郵便), or “military mail” in English.

Gunji Yūbin (軍事郵便)

Gunji yūbin was the military mail service that connected soldiers on the front lines to their families back in the metropole. It was established in 1894 (Meiji 27) during the Sino-Japanese War. Because the gunji yūbin was responsible for handling all letters going back and forth between the soldiers and their families, its extant pieces can be a treasure trove for researchers of war-time and Imperial Japan.

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New to OSU Libraries: The Japan Times Digital Archive!

Japanese Studies at OSU Libraries is delighted to announce that The Japan Times Digital Archive is now available at The Ohio State University. It is an extraordinary archive of Japan’s oldest English language newspaper and only independent English-language newspaper in existence today.  The digital archive allows you to search the full text of all issues of The Japan Times published since its inauguration in March 1897 (Meiji 30) until 2014.

“The Japan Times Archives” search interface

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Herman J. Albrecht Library of Historical Architecture – Ginza Kaiwai (銀座界隈)

As Japan was recovering from World War II, Sōhachi Kimura (木村荘八), Yoshikazu Suzuki (鈴木芳一), and several others, set out to document the history and architecture of the Ginza district in Tokyo. The finished project, Ginza Kaiwai (銀座界隈), contains two separate volumes. The main volume has detailed text, illustrations, drawings, woodblock prints, and hand-drawn maps of the entire district. The supplement, Arubamu, Ginza Hatchō (アルバム・銀座八丁) by Suzuki, is a panoramic photo, folded in leporello style, documenting the length of the main boulevard Ginza-dori.  

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Okinawan Toys by Shiso Sakiyama (崎山嗣昌) – Leon Kurtz Walters, Sr. and Grace Smith Walters Collection

These papier-mâché toys are part of the collection of Okinawan Folk Art Toys (traditional Ryukyuan handcrafts)  donated by Leon K. and Sadae Yamamoto Walters and also by Robert A. and Shirley Fearey.

  • A reading space with two maps hanging on the wall

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NHK Drama DVDs in the Japanese Studies Collections

The following is a list of NHK dramas offered through the Japanese Studies Collections. Brief plot synopses for each series are provided along with links to their pages in the library’s catalog. Continue reading

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