LibGuides: Japanese Studies: Home

Welcome

Happy New Year 2021!

I hope everything is going well with all of you. Due to COVID-19 pandemic situations, the Library is currently providing contactless circulation and remote services. I am available remotely to help you with your research questions and resources. Please send me an email at li_wang@brown.edu should you have any questions, or need to set an appointment for research consultation. We can set a Zoom meeting if needed. Thank you and be safe and stay healthy.

Quick Links

GACoS - Gateway to Academic Contents System
Gateway to search for documents and other academic information over the Internet, created by Information Technology Group at the University of Tokyo.

Reference Guides from Kyoto University Library

Japanese Research & Bibliographic Methods for Undergraduates
Created by Professor Susanna Fessler of the University at Albany, it is a full curriculum for students in undergraduate programs who have studied at least one year of Japanese.

Browser Extensions to quickly look up Japanese words and characters

Rikaichamp for Firefox
Browser plugin, if active it shows English translations of Japanese words the mouse cursor hovers over. Translations/Definitions come from the WWWJDIC.
Rikaichan for Chrome
Same as the browser plugin above, but for Chrome.
SafariKai for Safari
Same as the browser plugin above, but for Safari.

Searching in Japanese
For research in Japanese, searching by Romanization is a reliable way to find Japanese materials in Josiah and such databases as WorldCat. Use an authoritative dictionary for Romanization or refer to ALA-LC Romanization Tables for Japanese, which library catalogers follow. If you are not familiar with Romanization, search by Japanese script. Non-Roman characters and syllables can be searched as keyword, author names, and titles though all subject headings are in English. For more information on searching in non-Roman languages, see this guide by Yale University Library.

Citation

Quick Guide on Citation Style for Chinese, Japanese, and Korean Sources by the Yale University Library.

General Library Catalogs

CiNii Books
Union catalog of the holdings of Japanese academic institutions supported by The National Institute of Informatics in Japan. It includes about 2.5 million titles, including materials published before 1868.

NDL Online (国立国会図書館オンライン)
Search library materials and digital contents held at the National Diet Library.

NDL Search (国立国会図書館サーチ)
Integrated search service of catalogs and digital archives including libraries, archives, academic institutes and the National Diet Library.

Webcat Plus
Includes the records of books and journals held in university libraries throughout Japan.

Database of Pre-Modern Japanese Works (新日本古典籍総合データベース)

Union Catalogue of Early Japanese Books (日本古典籍総合目録)

Dictionaries and Reference Materials

Japanese-English Dictionaries (for English speakers)

WWWJDIC: Online Japanese Dictionary Service

Maintained by the Electronic Dictionary Research and Development Group at Monash University. The website and interface lack a modern design aesthetic, but the dictionary files of the WWWJDIC are the basis for nearly every other free online Japanese-English dictionary aimed at native English Speakers. Has a detailed and informative User Guide.

Jisho.org
A popular online Japanese-English Dictionary. Based off of the WWWJDIC files linked above, but presented in a more modern and user friendly format.

RomajiDesu English Japanese Dictionary and Translator

A free online Japanese ⇆ English dictionary which contains the following tools for Japanese learners, including English Japanese Dictionary , Kanji Dictionary, Japanese to English/Romaji Translator, Romaji to Kana Converter, and more.

Japanese Dictionaries (for Japanese speakers)

Weblio.jp

Online Dictionary to search for definitions of Japanese words in Japanese. Includes a thesauri search as well.

Kotobank (コトバンク)

Produces a combination of encyclopedia, dictionary, and news story entries on words searched. Search results can contain ads, but entries are ad free.

Kanji Jiten Online (漢字辞典オンライン)
Detailed information on individual kanji. Best for when reading material and need to look up the meaning of only one kanji, not as good for kanji compound words.

Eijirō (英辞郎) on the Web

Corpus of translations. It is especially helpful for seeing how phrases in English or Japanese are translated into the other language, i.e., the phrase "On Second thought," cannot be literally translated into Japanese. With this database you can see how a translator dealt with this English phrase in Japanese, or vice versa.

Other Dictionaries

Digital Dictionary of Buddhism

A compilation of Buddhist terms, texts, temple, schools, persons, etc., found in Buddhist canonical sources.

JAANUS Japanese Architecture and Art Net Users System

This dictionary contains approximately 8000 terms related to traditional Japanese architecture and gardens, painting, sculpture and art-historical iconography from approximately the 1st century A.D. to the end of the Edo period (1868). Terms from related fields such as lacquer, ceramics, textiles and metalwork have been included where they are considered to be of general interest and/or impact on the principal fields of architecture, painting and sculpture.

Reference Resources

JapanKnowledge: Encyclopedias, Dictionaries and Databases
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Current; JapanKnowledge is one of the largest collections of reference sources about Japan. The database provides access to a wide range of encyclopedias, dictionaries, and other resources, including: Encyclopedia Nipponica; Nihon kokugo daijiten, an unabridged dictionary of the Japanese language; Kokushi daijiten, an encyclopedia of Japanese history; Nihon jinmei daijiten, a biographical dictionary of Japan; and full-text books in the Toyo bunko series as well as Shinpen Nihon koten bungaku zenshu, a complete collection of Japanese classical literature.
This database DOES NOT work with EZProxy. Please download the SSL-VPN client to your computer from software.brown.edu to access this resource from off-campus.

Japanese Wikipedia

Japanese Date Conversion
Converting recent dates. Since 1873-01-01 the system of months and days follows the Gregorian calendar.

Japan Style Sheet--The SWET Guide Writers, Editors, and Translators
This 93-page online book was compiled to assist writers, editors, translators, graphic or web designers, administrators, office staff, or anyone working with English-language publications related to Japan.

Databases and Journals

Journal Articles

CiNii Articles
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Dates of coverage vary; CiNii Articles incorporates 13 Japanese databases, allowing users to search articles published in Japanese academic journals as well as articles included in the National Diet Library's Japanese Periodicals Index Database. As of September 2014, it includes over 3.65 million full-text articles for subject areas in humanities and social sciences as well as pure sciences, engineering, medicine, and agriculture.

For off-campus access, you must register:
English
Japanese

Database of Research Thesis in Japanese Literature (国文学論文目録データベース)

Periodical index to Kokubungaku Nenkan (国文学年鑑), which lists journal articles on Japanese literature.

J-STAGE (科学技術情報発信・流通総合システム)
Online database that indexes scholarly arts and sciences articles published in Japan. Some articles are available in full-text.

Zasshi Kiji Sakuin Zasshi Shusei Detabesu
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1868-present; indexes academic and general journal articles published in Japanese, including minor periodicals published in local prefectures and cities as well as those published in the neighboring countries during the colonial times. Covers humanities, social sciences and natural sciences. It combines content from periodicals indexed by the National Diet Library in Japan.
This database DOES NOT work with EZProxy. Please download the SSL-VPN client to your computer from software.brown.edu to access this resource from off-campus.

E-Books

Maruzen Ebook Library
Maruzen eBook Library provides access to Japanese ebook titles. Click the link above to see the list of titles, including Nihongo tadoku bukkusu (Japanese Graded Readers), that are currently available for Brown users. Our subscription allows for only one OR three concurrent users per title. Please log out by clicking "Etsuran shuryo" when finished to allow the next user to access the content.

JapanKnowledge: Encyclopedias, Dictionaries and Databases
Includes an e-book collection of the following multi-volume sets:
●   Tōyō bunko (東洋文庫）
●   Shinpen Nihon koten bungaku zeshū (新編日本古典文学全集)
●   Bunko Kuseju [Que sais-je?] besuto serekushon (文庫クセジュベストセレクション）

Aozora Bunko 青空文庫
Free database of a collection of over 15,000 works of Japanese-language fiction and non-fiction, including out-of-copyright books and works that the authors wish to make freely available.

The Japan P.E.N. Club Digital Library
Contains over 900 literary works including many copyrighted works with the permission of the copyright holders of each work.

National Diet Library Digital Collection
The NDL Digital Collections enables a user to search and view a variety of resources, collected and stored by the National Diet Library of Japan.

Other Databases

Institutional Repositories Database (IRDB) (学術機関リポジトリデータベース)
Allows you to search all the institutional repositories sites in Japan.

KAKEN Database of Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research (科学研究費助成事業データベース)
Includes information on adopted projects, assessment, and research achievements from the Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research (KAKENHI) Program

Japanese Center for Asian Historical Records (JACAR) Japanese; English
Digital archive of Asian historical records, that are historical documents of Japan concerning the modern Japanese relations with other countries, particularly those in Asia.

National Archives of Japan Digital Archive (国立公文書館デジタルアーカイブ)

Newspapers

Access World News
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Access World News Research Collection is a full text news resource consisting over 7,000+ local, regional, national and international sources. Updated daily, it offers researchers and students primary source information on todays issues and events from newspapers, newswires, transcripts, video clips, web only, and blogs. Provides comprehensive news and information on different perspectives on a wide variety of topics, including economics, business, political science, environmental issues, health and welfare topics, social problems, consumer affairs, education, local government, international affairs and defense, laws, sports and much more. Offering a variety of perspectives from all over the world, the important news sources in this collection are ideal for comparing and contrasting views on both local and global issues. New home of the Providence Journal.
Kikuzo II Bijuaru for Libraries: Asahi Shinbun Kiji Detabesu
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1879-present; Kikuzo II bijuaru for libraries: Asahi Shinbun kiji Detabesu provides access to over 13 million Japanese newspaper articles published by Asahi Shinbun. Full text searching is available post-1985. The database also includes: articles from two weekly magazines, AERA and Shakkan Asahi; Chiezo, a contemporary dictionary; the Who's Who Database; and the Historical Photo Archive, which contains approximately 10 thousand photographic records mostly taken in Asia during the World War II period.

This database DOES NOT work with EZProxy. Please download the SSL-VPN client to your computer from software.brown.edu to access this resource from off-campus.
Nikkei Telecom 21
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1876-present; full text search through The Nikkei or Nihon Keizai Shimbun (1981-present) and three other Nikkei newspapers (1988-present); historical archive of Nikkei newspapers (1876-1974) in PDF format as well as headline search through The Nikkei (1975-1981). Nikkei Company Profile with the latest data on more than 22,000 Japanese firms, Nikkei WHOs WHO, and Nikkei English News are also available.
Yomidas Rekishikan
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1874-present; Yomidas Rekishikan provides access to over 10 million Japanese newspaper articles published by Yomiuri Shinbun. Contents are in scanned image format from 1874 to 1989; full text from 1986 to present. Searchable by keyword, subject category, and issue. The database also includes articles from the English edition, The Japan News (from 1989 to present) as well as biographical information (Gendai jinmeiroku) on 26,000 contemporary persons who are linked to related news articles

Other Newspapers

Japan News
● via Yomidas rekishikan (1989-present)
● Japan News (via Access World News Research Collection) (2001-present)

Japan Times
●   Nippon Times (Microform) (1943-1951)
●   Japan Times (Microform) (1977-1987)
●   Japan Times (via ProQuest Business Collection) (1991-2000)
●   Japan Times (via Access World News Research Collection) (1999-2021)

Rafu Shimpo
1914-present; digital archive of Rafu Shimpo, the longest running Japanese American newspaper in the United States. The Rafu Shimpo Digital Archive contains all obtainable published issues from 1914-1917. The archive will grow with an additional years worth of content added annually.

Films

Asian Film Online
Asian Film Online is an online streaming video collection of nearly 600 narrative feature films, documentaries, and shorts. With Asian voices addressing Asian issues, and through works selected by Asian film experts, the collection offers highly relevant perspectives and insights. Its themes - such as modernity, globalization, national identity, female agency, inequalities in opportunity amid social and political unrest, and cultural and sexual identity - are central to any meaningful discussion of Asian culture.

Films related to Japan (from Kanopy Films and Documentaries)

Japanese Cinema (from Kanopy Films and Documentaries)

Art, Culture, and Religion

Art

Bijutsu jinmei kensaku (美術人名検索)
Biographical database of about 10,000 Japanese artists.

ColBase: Integrated Collections Database of the National Museums, Japan (国立文化財機構所蔵品統合検索システム)
Enables a cross-sectional search of the collections of the four national museums in Japan and the collections of the Nara National Research Institute for Cultural Properties.

e-Museum (e国宝)
Provides high-definition images of national treasures and important cultural properties owned by Tokyo National Museum, Kyoto National Museum, Nara National Museum, Kyushu National Museum. Descriptions in Japanese, English, Chinese and Korean.

Culture

Cultural Heritage Online (文化遺産オンライン)
Provides descriptions and images of national treasures and important cultural properties administered by the Agency for Cultural Affairs.

Religion

Database of Japanese Intellectual History 日本思想史文献データベース検索
Database provided by the Department of Japanese Intellectual History, Tohoku University, covering publications from 1968 to 2003.

Kokugakuin Daigaku Dejitaru Myūjiamu 國學院大學デジタル・ミュージアム
Provides various digital resources, including Encyclopedia of Shinto.

Online bibliography of Sōtō-shū (曹洞宗関係文献目録オンライン検索)
Database of publications related to Sōtō Zen.

SAT Daizōkyō Text Database (SAT大正新脩大藏經テキストデータベース)
Database of the Taishō revised edition of the Chinese Buddhist Cannon.

Shūkyō nenkan (宗教年鑑)
An annual publication about religions in Japan by the Agency for Cultural Affairs. A recent issue as well as back issues available online.

Special Collections and Archives

Anne S.K. Brown Military Collection
The foremost American collection of material devoted to the history and iconography of soldiers and soldiering, and one of the world's largest collections devoted to the study of military and naval uniforms. It also contains over 50 rare Japanese books and manuscripts from the 18th and 19th centuries.
Japanese LGBTQ+ Magazines
Collection of magazines published in Japan by and for the LGBTQ+ communities, held in the John Hay Library.
Mary Jane Mikuriya papers, 1952-2017
Consists of the personal papers of Mary Jane Mikuriya, a woman of Japanese and Austro-Hungarian descent and Pembroke College alumna from the class of 1956, including clippings, room assignment correspondence and cards, commencement and Father Daughter Weekend programs, facebooks, scrapbook pages, and her diploma.

Data, Statistics, and GIS

China Historical GIS
Launched through Harvard University in 2001 to provide a GIS platform for scholarly and scientific research. Japan GIS resources are linked from this homepage, and include numerous historical maps, Tokugawa data, and links to other Japan-related geographical resources.

Japanese Government Statistics Bureau portal English Japanese
Includes census data from 1995 and 2000 census. Maps from 1955-1995.

Digital Humanities Projects

List of Dataset by Center for Open Data for Humanities
Offer various data sets including per-modern texts, modern magazines, Edo cooking receipts, and shapes and coordinates of old Japanese characters, etc.

Corpora and Databases by by the National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics
Corpus for "Linguistic resources of written and spoken Japanese"

Perry In Japan: A Visual History
A project of the Department American Studies at Brown. Contributors to this project include Susan Smulyan (Faculty lead). Materials for use in cross-cultural evaluation of Perry’s encounter with the Japanese.

Interdisciplinary Databases

Databases Accessible from Library's Website

Academic Search Premier
Current; multidisciplinary full text database, designed for the academic community. Includes full text coverage for just under 4,700 journals, including 3,600 peer-reviewed journals.
Arts and Humanities Citation Index
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1975-present; source for information in all arts and humanities disciplines. Useful for retrieving recent articles that cite a known earlier article.
ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials
1949-present; the ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials is the premier index to journal articles, book reviews, and collections of essays in all fields of religion. Links are provided to 100,000 full text articles in ATLASerials, from more than fifty journals selected by religion scholars in the United States. Full text resources from the Religion and Philosophy Collection are also linked within this database.
Bibliography of Asian Studies
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1971-present; this online version of the Bibliography of Asian Studies (BAS) contains more than 610,000 records of materials in all subjects (especially humanities and social sciences) pertaining to East, Southeast, and South Asia.
Brown Theses and Dissertations
The Brown University Theses and Dissertations database includes over 15,000 records for dissertations written and submitted in fulfillment of Brown University degree requirements from 1893 to 2000. Included are undergraduate honors theses, master's theses, and doctoral dissertations. Records include the author's name, thesis title, degree awarded, year, granting department, and when available, thesis advisor. [This resource is publicly available.]

Google Book Search
Includes digitized collections from participating libraries. The "About the book" section provides useful bibliographic and other information. When a book is out of copyright, it can be viewed or downloaded it in its entirety; other books are viewable in preview or small snippets only. [This resource is publicly available.]

Google Scholar
Google Scholar provides a simple way to broadly search for scholarly literature. From one place, you can search across many disciplines and sources: articles, theses, books, abstracts and court opinions, from academic publishers, professional societies, online repositories, universities and other web sites. Google Scholar helps you find relevant work across the world of scholarly research. Google Scholar includes much of Brown's library materials as well. Look for the "FindIt@Brown" button.
HathiTrust
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HathiTrust is a partnership of academic & research institutions, offering a collection of millions of book and ejournal titles digitized from libraries around the world. As members of HathiTrust, Brown users get PDF download access to nearly 3 million public domain or permissioned works that were a part of the Google Books digitization projects, or were contributed to the trust by other member institutions.

To login, click the LOGIN BUTTON and select Brown University from the list of institutions. If you have not already authenticated with your Brown username and password, you will then be asked to do so. While you can read articles without logging in, you will NOT be able to download articles.
JSTOR
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Provides image and full text online access to back issues of selected scholarly journals in history, economics, political science, demography, mathematics and other fields of the humanities and social sciences. Consult the online tables of contents for holdings, as coverage varies for each title.

If you are experiencing printing problems from JSTOR while using a Macintosh computer, please download the most recent version of Adobe Reader. http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html.
If you need assistance, please contact the CIS Help Desk or eresources@brown.edu.
ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global
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1637-present; ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global is the world's most comprehensive collection of dissertations and theses. PQDT Global includes more than 2.5 million dissertation and theses citations from around the world from 1861 (with a few older) to the present day together with over one million full text dissertations that are available for download in PDF format. The database offers full text for most of the dissertations added since 1997 and strong retrospective full text coverage for older graduate works. Each dissertation published since July 1980 includes a 350 word abstract written by the author. Master's theses published since 1988 include 150 word abstracts. Bibliographic citations are available for dissertations dating from 1637. Where available, PQDT Global provides 24-page previews of dissertations and theses. ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Full Text also offers researchers unlimited access to digital copies from their own institutions as well as affordable copies from others.
Readers' Guide Retrospective
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1890-1982; contains comprehensive indexing of the most popular general-interest periodicals published in the United States and reflects the history of 20th century America. See Readers Guide Abstracts for 1982 to present.
Religion and Philosophy Collection
1975-present; Religion & Philosophy Collection is a comprehensive database covering such topics as world religions, major denominations, biblical studies, religious history, epistemology, political philosophy, philosophy of language, moral philosophy and the history of philosophy. This database offers over 300 full text journals, including more than 250 peer-reviewed titles.
Social Sciences Citation Index
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1900-present; source for information in all major social sciences disciplines. Useful for retrieving recent articles which cite a known earlier article.
SocINDEX with Full Text
1895-present; SocINDEX with Full Text is a comprehensive sociology research database. This product contains informative abstracts for more than 620 "core" coverage journals dating back to 1895. In addition, SocINDEX with Full Text provides data mined from more than 500 "priority" coverage journals as well as over 1,390 "selective" coverage journals. Includes extensive indexing for books, monographs, conference papers, and other sources. Searchable cited references are also provided. SocINDEX with Full Text offers coverage from all subdisciplines of sociology, including abortion, anthropology, criminology, criminal justice, cultural sociology, demography, economic development, ethnic & racial studies, gender studies, marriage & family, politics, religion, rural sociology, social psychology, social structure, social work, sociological theory, sociology of education, substance abuse, urban studies, violence, welfare, and many others.
WorldCat
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Books, journals, sound recordings, videos and manuscripts collected and catalogued by your library and libraries around the world. WorldCat does not include individual articles, stories in journals, magazines, newspapers, or book chapters.

Direct Borrow Services: BorrowDirect

Direct Borrow Services: BorrowDirect
The Library participates in the BorrowDirect service which allow Brown students, faculty, and staff to place direct online requests to borrow books from partner libraries for expedited delivery to Brown.

Requesting Articles

ILLiad
ILLiad is Brown's InterLibrary Loan system, and can be used to request items not held at Brown. Faculty and medical students may also use ILLiad to request electronic delivery of journal articles held only in print.

How to request articles not available online at Brown.