2024 conference abstracts

Case study: Japanese books restoration (2024)

Barros, Elisa

In a previous presentation I introduced my studio and how I work with damaged Japanese books. I showed different possibilities of treatments and materials that restorers use in the restoration and/or conservation of books. This time, I want to focus my research and my practices on a very specific problem. As is very often the case, we find holes made by insects in our collections of Japanese books. I will present a case study with 6 different possibilities (such as adding fibers manually, adding fibers by machine, by doubling, etc.). All these possibilities will be demonstrated, analyzed and discussed in terms of feasibility in relation to the conservation of books/collections.

New sources of cataloguing data (2024)

Dillon, Chris ; Ohtsuka, Yasuyo

In 2023 the Language of Cataloguing Taskforce (LoCT) was set up in the British Library to look at existing rules for the derivation of non-Roman script cataloguing records from other libraries with the aim of finding new sources of records (our main sources hitherto being OCLC including LC records and, for Japanese, NACSIS records). Particular attention was paid to whether it would be possible to use records whose language of cataloguing (as found in MARC 21 field 040$b) was not eng (English) and if so which fields would need to be altered. This would be a major difference from cataloguing practice hitherto.

Reconsidering Librarian Skills (2024)

Egami, Toshinori ; Magnussen, Naomi Yabe ; Kamiya, Nobutake

EAJRS panel discussions have been held several times until last year, but this year we would like to think together about topics that we could not fully discuss due to time constraints.
The term "open science" has been used for some time now, but when libraries consider supporting open science, what kind of skills are required? This panel discussion aims to consider, with a view to preceding studies such as "Time to Adopt: Librarians’ New Skills and Competency Profiles" (Schmidt et al. 2016), what skills librarians will need in the future in the following areas:
Citizen science
Data/AI literacy
Digital humanities

Experiences with establishing a new service (2024)

Flache, Ursula

As a new service to researchers in the field of Asian studies the Specialised Information Service Asia (Fachinformationsdienst (FID) Asien) which is managed by the East Asia Department of the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin offers the CrossAsia Open Access Repository since summer 2022. Recommended by the German Research Foundation its goal is to provide open, free-of-charge and long-term access to quality scholarly materials from all fields of social sciences, cultural studies and humanities related to Asia. Nevertheless the views and expectations of information specialists, users and researchers concerning the Repository differ to some extent. In this talk the framework of its implementation, the reactions from the research community and the obstacles as well as the merits of promoting this new service will be shared.

From a user of Japanese resources to an expert on Japanese resources (2024)

Fuse, Rie ; Hata, Yuki

In contemporary higher education, key skills include being able to apply knowledge and use a variety of resources, which are also needed in the world of work. This paper presents the case of an applied project course for master's level students at the University of Helsinki in spring 2024. This course aimed to support students in improving competences in using Japanese resources. In the course, students majoring in Japanese language or Japanese studies were tasked with planning and organizing the "Japanese Stories about Food Seminar", which was open to the public. They were also responsible for managing related events, such as online exhibition of Japanese materials brought from Japan by the seminar lecturers and materials held by the Finnish National Library. Finally, the students translated lectures from the seminar to be published later on various channels.

Digital Humanities and "Digital Archive" in Japan (2024)

Gotō, Makoto ; Hashimoto, Yuta ; Kawabe, Sakiko ; Teramura, Minami

This presentation will introduce new resources from the National Institutes for the Humanities and the National Museum of Japanese History and explain the major trends in Digital Humanities (DH) and Digital Archives (DA) in Japan. Following the establishment of the DH Promotion Office, the National Institutes for the Humanities has been actively engaged in various DH-related activities. Although the discussion on resources will primarily focus on nihuBridge, this presentation will also provide comprehensive information on diverse related activities and outline the trends and future directions of digital research materials in Japan.

Overall picture of digitization and textization of the National Diet Library (2024)

Inoue, Sachiko

In recent years, the National Diet Library (NDL) has been engaged in the large-scale digitization of Japanese publications and the creation of their text data. The current goal is to complete the digitization of books published in Japan in 2000 or earlier as soon as possible. 3.9 million materials including books, journals and doctoral theses have been digitized already, some of which are available on the internet. Detailed searches of these materials require text data.
The 2018 amendment to the Copyright Act allows text data on digitized materials to be created and used for searching without the permission of the copyright holder. In response, the National Diet Library has created text data for 2.57 million digitized materials and is using it for full-text search services of digitized materials in the National Diet Library Digital Collections. In addition, the National Diet Library Material Search for Persons with Disabilities (Mina Search) allows those who are blind, visually impaired, dyslexic, or otherwise print disabled to download text data themselves or through libraries. The text data of newly digitized materials will continue to be produced.

Two Hosho-shis that Sankin-kotai created (2024)

Ishikawa, Yoshie

The presentation will demonstrate through paper research that there are two types of hosho paper with different folding methods, sizes, and thicknesses, and will reveal that Roju-Hosho was issued less formal when Daimyo was in Edo. The presenter will report on examples of Roju-Hosho preserved in the Yamauchi family (山内家), the lord of the Tosa-Han (土佐藩), and the administrative documents of the Hiroshima-Han.

Challenges of Japanese Local Mingu Materials and Efforts to Open Up and Share the Information (2024)

Kawabe, Sakiko

This presentation will introduce and discuss the challenges of preserving and utilizing Japanese local mingu materials and the efforts to open up and share information on them. Everyday objects, such as tableware, utensils, tools and equipment for livelihood, clothes, adornments, and furniture made and used through people's daily lives, are called "mingu" in Japanese folklore and museums. They are significant materials through which we can interpret the culture and changes of people's living in a certain time span or space. Therefore, mingu, especially those made and used before the drastic changes in people's lifestyle during the high economic growth after WW2, were collected throughout the country and preserved in each region to protect them from disappearance.

Challenging Anglocentric Library Infrastructures (2024)

Koizumi, Kiyoka

Although multilingualism or multi-scriptiality is a constitutive factor for research, teaching, learning, and working in all academic institutions, academic infrastructures such as (university) libraries have been developed primarily by and for English and Latin script. This has resulted in a tremendous gap in resource findability between Latin and non-Latin scripts.
This affects not only the accessibility of library holdings in non-Latin scripts like Japanese, but also the rising scholarly field of digital humanities and (digital) social sciences in the area studies disciplines, which are dependent on the use of multilingual (meta)data, multilingual digital tools (platforms, software, ...) and, in particular, the use of non-Latin scripts in digital environments.

Model Building in the Humanities through Data-Driven Problem Solving (2024)

Komiyama, Fumi ; Yamamoto, Kazuaki ; Matsubara, Noriko

The National Institute of Japanese Literature NIJL has started a new project, "Model Building in the Humanities through Data-Driven Problem Solving", in 2024.
NIJL had digitized 300,000 pre-modern Japanese texts under the "NIJL-NW project". In the new project, 150,000 digitized pre-modern works will be added in collaboration with various institutions, including those overseas. In addition, we are going to try extracting full-text of digital images from pre-modern works.
We will also improve the functionality of the "Union Catalogue Database of Japanese Texts (国書データベース)" and enrich its content. Based on this database, we will promote the "Data-driven research" and other projects.
In this presentation, we will introduce an overview of our new project and further efforts regarding this database (e.g., text data creation by OCR).

The Introduction of Japanese Manuscripts about Sword-guards (2024)

Koyama, Noboru

We are interested in how early Japanese books (wakosho) contributed to the development of Japanese studies in Europe. As part of the "Japonisme" craze, a lot of Japanese sword-guards (tsuba) were collected in the late 19th century as well as ukiyo-e prints, netsukes, etc. and studies on them started in early 20th century in Europe. One of earliest Japanese research works on "tsuba" was Matsumiya Kanzan's book-form manuscript which was titled as "Tōban Shinpin Zukan" (it was also titled as "Tōban Shōkan Kuketsu", "Tōban Zufu", "Tōban Zukan"). Even in Japan, modern authentic studies on "tsuba" started only around the turn of the 20th century using "wakosho" on them.

Automation, AI, and Coding (2024)

Lisbon, Adam

This presentation offers a framework to explore automating various aspects of work in Japanese studies librarianship using AI tools such as ChatGPT and CoPilot. Progressively complex use cases will demonstrate immediate solutions requiring little to no technical expertise, and advance to more sophisticate solutions that highlight AI's limits in automation and problem solving.
The framework I propose is built on several interrelated pillars: verifiability; expedience; expertise, both in subject matter and technical prowess; and active vs. passive learning.

National Diet Library Services to Provide Materials as Digital Data (2024)

Matsuzaki, Hiroki

The National Diet Library (NDL) has several services that provide patrons with digital data, including access via the Internet to materials whose copyright protection has expired and a Digitized Contents Transmission Service available both to Libraries and to Individuals. In addition, we are planning on allowing users to download digital materials in PDF format as part of our Remote Photoduplication Service.
The Digitized Contents Transmission Service for Libraries/Individuals is a service that allows digitized materials that are within the copyright protection period but are difficult to obtain due to being out of print or other reasons to be viewed or printed out at a library that has been approved by the NDL or at a personal terminal. In April 2024, it became possible for overseas libraries to apply for a usage category that allows printing out.
The Remote Photoduplication Service (PDF download) is a service that provides users with digital data (PDF files) of a portion of a copyrighted work created by scanning or other means. Although there are some exceptions, many of the materials in our collection are available for use. With the revised Copyright Act that came into effect in 2023, it became possible to provide patrons with digital copies via the internet, including by email.
This time, we will mainly introduce recent developments in the Digitized Contents Transmission Service for Libraries/Individuals and the features of the Remote Photoduplication Service (PDF download) service.

Echoes of Edo in the University of Oregon's Japanese Votive Slips Collection (2024)

McDowell, Kevin

The University of Oregon's Special Collections and University Archives (SCUA) has a large and rare collection of Japanese votive slips (nōsatsu or senjafuda), consisting of over ninety albums with thousands of individual images. The slips, with the names and addresses of pilgrims printed on them, were originally used in early modern Japan to paste on shrines and temples as a way of earning religious merits. This ostensibly religious practice, however, was, almost from the start, mixed with aspects of play and, over time, an exchange element was added as nōsatsu aficionados began to commission artists, carvers and printers to produce elaborate, polychrome artworks solely for the purpose of exchanging and collecting at regular meetings and not for commercial uses. This collection is of unique cultural interest as it offers a glimpse into an art form that was exclusive to the networks of nōsatsu groups that engaged in pasting and exchanging slips in the late Edo, Meiji, Taishō and early Shōwa periods (ca. 1850-1930).

About Osaka University's Collection (2024)

Miyamoto, Yukiko

In Osaka during the early modern period, there were many academic institutions where townspeople taught, townspeople learned, and townspeople financed and operated. The Tekijuku school of Ogata Koan, the Kaitokudo school of Nakai Kouken and others, and the Gonsuidou school of Hiranogo are representative of such institutions. Osaka University is a national university founded along these lines.
Currently, there are several collections in the Osaka University Library. The above-mentioned three collections of academic institutions are also divided and collected by several faculties, libraries, and research institutes of Osaka University. However, while the collections of the Osaka academies are an intellectual legacy that is vast in both quality and quantity and retains the value of unexplored research, because of the wide variety of fields involved, they have never been comprehensive, and no unified database exists.
In addition, of the bunko that have already been digitized, only the Akagi bunko (Ko-joruri Shohon), Oshinjoji bunko, Ono bunko (Edo period song books, stylish books, etc.), Sasano bunko (approximately 200 joruri books), and Tekijuku-related materials are available from the National Institute of Japanese Literature's Kokusho database.
Therefore, there are many issues to be addressed in the future, such as the longitudinal use of materials that have been made available to the public in the form of images. In this presentation, I would like to report on the current status and future prospects.

The Birth of Speech Synthesis (2024)

Noguchi, Setsuko

Umeda Noriko was one of the pioneering speech scientists who first automated a range of voices – such as male, female, and child – in speech synthesis. She earned a PhD in linguistics from the University of Tokyo and initially worked at the Electrotechnical Laboratory (ETL, 電気試験所). Her significant contributions at ETL led to her recruitment by Bell Telephone Laboratories (BTL). After moving to the US, Umeda and her team developed groundbreaking technologies in the 1970s, including the origins of female voice and natural speech in computer synthesis, as well as audio interfaces for blind individuals. Her remarkable work marks an early era in the history of AI. Later, Umeda became a professor of linguistics at New York University and later director of the Institute for Speech and Language Sciences.

Development of DH educational video lectures and Podcast LOD (2024)

Ōi, Masao

With increasing attention to digital humanities (DH) in Japan, there are high expectations for educational content for human resource development related to DH. In Japan, however, institutions capable of providing DH education on an organizational basis are rare. As a result, there is no accumulated curriculum, making it difficult to conduct DH education in a systematic method. There are also few opportunities to learn about the attractiveness and potential of DH, which is a necessary prerequisite for human resource development.
To address these issues, the National Institutes for the Humanities is developing the "DH Lecture Program" and "DH Podcast & LOD," which will provide researchers' "narratives" on humanities research and related resources, and connect them to society and the future.

Ariga Nagao's The Correct Vision of China. Complete works (2024)

Osadcha Ferreira, Yuliya

The name of Ariga Nagao (有賀長雄, 1860-1921), a Japanese jurist and sociologist, rarely appears in books on the history of Japanese intellectual thought. My attention to him was attracted due to the translation of his work "On Bungaku" (『文學論』, August 1885) as "Theory of Literature" (Bugaeva, Dagmara. Japanese Publicists of the late 19th Century. Moscow, "Nauka", 1978). For a long time, I truly believed that "On Bungaku" was the only main paper on Confucianism and its role in the development of modern Japan. However, I changed my point of view after discovering Ariga's "The Correct Vision of China. Complete works" (『支那正觀全』, 1918), where "On Bungaku" was published together with "On Philosophy of Confucius" (『聖門哲學論』, December 1885) as appendixes to the final work "The Correct Vision of China". Consequently, "On Bungaku" became an introduction to his study of the foundations European and Chinese-Japanese civilizations and their interaction, in which Ariga presents the "ideal model of culture" (by Seki Ryōichi).

Japanese Traditional Performing Arts (2024)

Petkova, Galia

Although traditional performing arts continue to be a vital part of Japanese culture, as in the rest of Asia, many genres are threatened by extinction due to the lack of successors and interest among the young generation. Specialists and practitioners have engaged in digitalizing textual and visual materials and creating databases, thus facilitating the research on the various forms and contributing to their popularization. There is a significant gap, however, between the systematic digitalization of the major genres, such as kabuki and noh, for example, and the myriad of local performing arts. The purpose of this presentation is two-fold. The first is to overview and compare main electronic resources for the classical theatre, focusing on kabuki. On the other hand Japan boasts a rich culture of regional performing arts minzoku geinō or kyōdo geinō, staged at festivals. The majority of these, however, remain relatively unknown and many are seriously endangered. The second goal of my presentation is to address the dearth of online resources for these kyōdo geinō, by overviewing the few available web sites, and to explore the possibility for creating a comprehensive interactive database of these forms, in Japanese and English. In order to assist their popularization and preservation, its function should be not only to provide detailed information about their history and features, but also to serve as a platform for digital connectivity between performers, local communities, researchers, tourists, and other potential stakeholders.

Offering consultation services for preservation and restoration of historical materials (2024)

Shibutani, Ayako ; Takashima, Akihiko ; Hirano, Akira ; Yamaguchi, Satoshi ; Hirasawa, Kanako

For historical paper-based materials, we are conducting research to analyse their components using natural scientific methods, predominantly optical techniques, to provide fundamental data for restoration. Recently, we analysed the components and constituents of historical paper-based materials through archaeology and cultural heritage science, material structure analysis, botany and genome analysis, and data science methods. In addition, efforts are underway to standardise scientific information such as numerical data and integrate it into our database. This presentation introduces HI’s restoration and conservation techniques for historical paper-based materials. In collaboration with the EAJRS Conservation/Preservation Working Group, it establishes a consultation service aimed at assisting European institutions facing challenges in conserving and restoring historical paper-based materials, while also contemplating the global dissemination of conservation techniques in this age of digital connectivity.

The European Library of CEEJA, Colmar, Alsace (2024)

Vande Walle, Willy

The Centre Européen d’études japonaises d’Alsace holds about 135,000, making it one of the biggest Japanese studies libraries in Europe. Its holdings are an aggregate of several components. The oldest comprises books from the former boarding school of Lycée Seijo d'Alsace. These were meant to serve as reference materials for the boarding schools pupils. They constitute a wealth of reference works, of encyclopaedias on a wide range of topics, as well as anthologies and collections of Japanese literature.
Several more donations were added. In 2020, Christiane Séguy donated her books on the Meiji period. The library also received a large collection of several hundred volumes from professor Hayami Akira related to economic and social history, and historical demography, and recently the personal library of Hidemura Senzô (1922-2021).
Although the various above-mentioned components are impressive, they are dwarfed by the personal library of Regine Mathias and Erich Pauer. Regine Mathias is a specialist in economic history of Japan, and Erich Pauer is an expert on the history of technology in in modern Japan. Although their library covers just about all major areas of Japanology, it is especially the studies and resource materials that are related to their respective fields of research that are extensive and rare among Japanese studies libraries in Europe.
I will introduce the richness and especially the specific characteristics of this library, I will give an overview of its constituent components, present its main sources, and highlight its strengths.

Release of Nichibunken Digital Archive and Advanced Use of Databases using AI Technology (2024)

Yamada, Shoji

In March 2024, the International Research Centre for Japanese Studies (Nichibunken) launched the new "Nichibunken Digital Archive," an IIIF-based archive of image materials in our collection. Currently, the archive includes the contents of "Yoshida Hatsusaburō Bird's-eye View Maps," "Picture Scrolls," and "Folklore Illustrations" databases and will be expanded in the future. The presentation will introduce its functions and future development.
The presenter is researching and partially implementing machine learning and generative AI technologies for our text databases to facilitate advanced search and content understanding, as well as knowledge discovery using digital humanities methods.

Initiatives for Sharing and Utilization of Humanities and Social Science Data (2024)

Yamada, Taizo ; Miwa, Satoshi ; Yokouchi, Nobutada ; Shibutani, Ayako ; Nakamura, Satoru ; Hirasawa, Kanako

The Historiographical Institute (HI) and the Institute of Social Science (ISS) at the University of Tokyo are now working on the ‘Program for Strengthening Data Infrastructure for the Humanities and Social Sciences’ as core institutions from 2023. The predecessor was the ‘Program for Constructing Data Infrastructure for the Humanities and Social Sciences’, which piloted a comprehensive infrastructure for sharing and utilizing research data in humanities and social sciences in Japan. One notable outcome is the release of the Japan Data Catalog for the Humanities and Social Sciences (JDCat), which, as of April 2024, had 34,293 data and datasets registered.
The current project aims to enhance and strengthen this research infrastructure that has been established. The HI has been releasing data mainly from Japanese historical materials, while the ISS has been compiling and releasing data from social surveys and other sources. In addition to datasets of HI and ISS, they also release research data commissioned by other institutions. Furthermore, they will lead institutions that handle humanities and social science data to sustainably and comprehensively strengthen the research infrastructure of Japan as a whole.

Monumenta Nipponica as a Vital Publication Resource in Japanese Studies (2024)

Yiu, Angela

The mission of our journal is two-fold: to make scholarship on Japanese Studies written in English available to scholars all over the world, and to make Japanese scholarship accessible to Anglophone readership through translation of original Japanese scholarship. As a result, Japanese Studies will not be limited only to Japan and will be able to reach the world.
This presentation will discuss 1) How we modernize Monumenta Nipponica by utilizing digital connectivity to make Japanese Studies in the humanities widely available and accessible to the world; 2) How we continue to explore the possibilities, limitations, and hazards in the rapid development of AI; 3) How we upheld editorial and publication traditions to maintain the highest standard of publication. This presentation will include a Q&A about the journal for potential contributors and interested researchers.