Electronic Resources for Japanese Studies

WorldCat (OCLC)
An online catalog of the 24,000 member libraries of OCLC. WorldCat has over 49 million titles, including books, serials, musical scores and recordings, and maps.  It also contains the majority of Waseda University's holdings. This catalog is useful for finding Japanese name readings.

Webcat
A union catalog of 670 academic libraries in Japan, maintained by the National Institute for Informatics (NII). With Webcat, you can search for books and journals held in university library collections throughout Japan.  Webcat contains almost 42 million titles.  Due to a delay in retrospective conversion of card catalogs, this database does not reflect the entirety of members' holdings.

Webcat Plus
A  “second-generation Webcat,” this database uses an “associative search function” that uses keywords to extract other words from the bibliographic records that have a high association with them.  Like Webcat, it also provides Japanese library holding information (useful for ILL).

National Diet Library NDL-OPAC
The National Diet Library NDL-OPAC enables searching the Library's holdings for books (Japanese & foreign), periodicals (Japanese & foreign), electronic resources, Japanese & Chinese old materials, doctoral dissertations, maps, audiovisual materials, and the Ashihara Collection (on performing arts).  Other links include the Zasshi Kiji Sakuin (Japanese Periodicals Index).  Please note: Columbia does not participate in ILL for books with NDL.  NDL will, however, provide photocopied articles to Columbia.  The NDL-OPAC is not available at certain times in the afternoon.  To access the Zasshi Kiji Sakuin during the times NDL-OPAC is down, please use Magazine Plus or GeNii/CiNii.

NDL Kindai Digital Library (Digital Library from the Meiji Era)
This new online tool allows users to access full-text versions of over 30,000 Meiji period books in the collection of the National Diet Library.  Books from the Taishō Period are now in progress.

Waseda University Scholarly Information Network System (WINE)
WINE is the Waseda University Library online catalog.  Although it contains 2.9 million records, WINE does not reflect the library's complete holdings. This catalog is useful for finding Japanese name readings.

Books.or.jp (Search Engine for Japanese Books)
Online "Japanese Books in Print" contains Japanese books currently available from commercial publishers and is maintained by the Japan Book Publishers Association.

Getting Japanese Books
To obtain a copy of a book you have located on the above catalogs/databases, try the following steps:
1. Go to CLIO (Columbia Library Information Online) to see if it is available in one of the Columbia libraries. 
2. If a book is not at Columbia or the Columbia copy is checked out,  try Borrow Direct. 
3. If the Borrow Direct libraries do not have an available copy, try ILL to request a copy. 
Note: Columbia is a member of GIF (Global ILL Framework), which allows us to borrow books and get copies of articles from GIF member libraries in Japan. 

Early Japanese Books (Kotenseki)

Nihon Kotenseki Sōgō Mokuroku
A database of pre-Meiji materials maintained by the National Institute of Japanese Literature (Kokubungaku Kenkyu Shiryōkan).
This database, “New KOKUSHO SO MOKUROKU” is a union catalogue of early Japanese books. (It also includes Chinese classics and books of the Meiji period). It provides authoritative information about Japanese classical literary works and their authors. It also provide bibliographic information on early Japanese books, and their holding libraries.

Index of Classical Works - Translations, Studies, and E-books
Individually maintained by a professor at Meiji Gakuin, this website contains an exhaustive list of classical Japanese texts, along with related translations (mostly English, some French and German) and studies on the texts.

*Zasshi kiji sakuin shūsei dētabēsu : Meiji kara genzai made sōgō zasshi kara chishi made = The complete database for Japanese magazines and periodicals from the Meiji era to the present.
Index to periodical articles published in Japanese, including those in former Japanese colonies, and including local periodicals not present in many other indexes. Coverage is from 1868 onwards. Merges data from various composite periodical indexes by Kokuritsu Kokkai Toshokan.

*MAGAZINEPLUS
Maintained by Nichigai Associates, this database includes citations from over 16,000 Japanese-language journals, periodicals, annual reports, general papers, and symposia, dating from 1945. The Japanese Periodicals Index (Zasshi kiji sakuin) contains articles dating from 1948.

*GeNii/CiNii
GeNii is NII's academic content portal, providing services related to academic papers, book information, etc.  In addition to providing individual services, GeNii connects the services together. Component parts are: CiNii (Citation information by NII), Webcat Plus, KAKEN, NII-DBR (Academic research database repository). It contains about 3 million full-text articles from 1000 published academic journals as well as bibliographic information on other academic papers.

Zasshi Kiji Sakuin (at National Diet Library) Japanese Periodicals Index
Maintained by the National Diet Library (Kokuritsu Kokkai Toshokan).   This database is an index to articles in over 8,428 journals published in Japan. Information from Zasshi Kiji Sakuin is also included in MagazinePlus and GeNii/CiNii. 

*Bibliography of Asian Studies (BAS)
An index of Western-language books and articles (in journals and edited volumes) on Asian Studies, maintained by the Association for Asian Studies. The BAS contains over 727,803 records of materials published since 1971.

*JSTOR
Full-text articles from more than 120 scholarly journals, excluding those published within the last five years. Japan-related journals include Monumenta Nipponica, the Journal of Asian Studies, the Journal of Japanese Studies, and the Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies.

*Project Muse
Full-text articles from over 100 scholarly journals from 1999/2000 to the present. Includes a few Japan-related journals, including Positions: East Asia Cultures Critique, the Asian Theatre Journal, and Asian Perspectives.

Kokubungaku Ronbun Mokuroku Database
Periodical article index to Kokubungaku Nenkan. Provides citations to journal articles and books with subjects related to Japanese literature.

*Japan Knowledge Plus (June 24, 2009)
Nihon Kokugo Daijiten and Nihon Rekishi Chimei Taikei are available on the first page after you login.

A collection of reference materials and some full text journals. 
Dictionaries include:
Japanese
English-Japanese
Japanese-English
English-English
dictionaries of current words (Imidas/and Gendai yōgo no kiso chishiki)
dictionary of scientific terms (Kagaku gijutsu ryakugo jiten)
biographical dictionary (Nihon jinmei daijiten, the JK Who's Who)
character dictionary (Jitsū)
Encyclopedias include:
Nihon daihyakka zensho (Nipponica), 30 vols.,
The Kodansha Encyclopedia of Japan

Full text journals include:
Shūkan ekonomisuto

Full text books:
Tōyō bunko series
chronologies

*Kodansha Encyclopedia of Japan Online
An update of the 1993 Japan: an illustrated encyclopedia, the online Kodansha contains over 12,000 entries. However, this number falls far short of the original nine-volume Kodansha Encyclopedia of Japan.  Also available from Japan Knowledge.

*Netto de Hyakka
An online version of Heibonsha's World Encyclopedia (Sekai daihyakka jiten), this website includes 83,000 entries, 10,000 illustrations, and 6,000 tables and charts.

BlueSky Collection
A collection of non-copyright-protected Japanese literary works, available for download in several file formats.

Japan Knowledge
Tōyō bunko series - research collection on Asian history and culture. Available in full text from volumes 1-700.

National Institute of Japanese Literature full-text Database
This database contains the full text of approximately 600 works from Iwanami's Nihon Koten Bungaku Taikei. Requires registration.

E-text Server
Maintained by the library at RyuKyu University, this server provides links to other Japanese universities with electronic resources.

Japanese Text Initiative (Universities of Virginia/Pittsburgh)
This website contains full-text versions of several works of classical Japanese literature, including the Manyoshu, Genji Monogatari, etc.

Mokkan Database
Maintained by the Nara Cultural Properties Research Institute (Nara Bunkazai kenkyujo), this website is a full-text database of over 30,000 mokkan (wooden tablets) dating to the Nara and Heian periods. The database also provides relevant archaeological informaton, i.e., where and when the item was unearthed.

Tohoku University, Kano Bunko
This database contains about 3,500 images from 200 titles, and reflects the personal collection of Kano Kokichi, a Meiji period academic.

Kyoto University
An image data of national treasures, important cultural assets, and other digitized materials, maintained by Kyoto University.

National Diet Library
The National Diet Library's online database of images from rare books and nishiki-e.

Tsukuba University
Tsukuba University's online listing of images from the library rare book collection, along with nishiki-e.

Tsubouchi Memorial Theatre Museum
A nishiki-e database and search engine maintained by the Tsubouchi Memorial Theatre Museum at Waseda University.

Old Photographs of Bakumatsu Meiji
A collection of about 5,400 photographs from the Bakumatsu and Meiji periods (1860-1899) maintained by Nagasaki University.

Mainichi PhotoBank
The largest digital image database in Japan, the Mainichi PhotoBank contains over 120,000 photographs from the prewar era, and over 200,000 photographs since 1998.

Yomiuri Photo Database
This photographic database contains Yomiuri Shimbun photographs from the 1950s to the present. Since this is a relatively new electronic resource, look for more material to be added in the future.

Government Web Server
A list/diagram of the current ministries of the Japanese government, along with links to their homepages.

Kokkai Kaigiroku
A database and search engine for the records of the National Diet.

JACAR (Japan Center for Asian Historical Records)
JACAR is a database of Japanese government documents relating to Asia. It combines resources held by the National Archives of Japan, the Diplomatic Record Office, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Library of the National Institute for Defense Studies. It contains over 160,000 searchable items (2,300,000 images total). The search engine utilizes a related keyword search, which allows users to search ALL the items in the same fashion using Japanese or English.

Local Governments
A web page containing links to prefectural and municipal government homepages throughout Japan.

Statistics Bureau and Statistics Center
Statistics compiled by government offices, including population information and the national census.

National Diet Library

National Institute of Informatics

National Institute of Japanese Literature

University of Tokyo, Shiryo Hensanjo

Ohara Institute of Social Research

International Research Center for Japanese Studies

University of Tokyo, Institute of Oriental Culture

Universities
A web page that provides links to Japanese universities. Searchable by prefecture and university name.

Libraries
Links to university libraries throughout Japan, (including technical schools and junior colleges), organized by prefecture.

Academic Societies
Links to all academic societies throughout Japan. This web page is maintained by the National Institute for Informatics.

Publishers
An alphabetical list of links to the web pages of all Japanese publishers.

Media
A links page dedicated to newspaper, broadcast, and communication companies.

Linguistics Web Sites
An individually-maintained web page, this site lists links to sites and institutions related to the study of Japanese language.

Humanities Web Sites
An individually maintained web page, this site lists links to sites and institutions related to the study of the humanities in Japan.

Philosophical WWW in Japan
An individually maintained web page that lists links to sites related to the study of philosophy, ethics, and religion as related to Japan.