UBC Japanese Library Resources Blog

Here are some of the titles that we recently acquired at Asian Library:

Fine Arts
Nihon ayatsuri ningyoshi (日本操り人形史)
Rinpa (琳派)

Language
Shigoto no Nihongo (しごとの日本語)
Watakushitachi to keigo (私たちと敬語)

Literature
1Q84 by MURAKAMI Haruki (1Q84 / 村上春樹)
Ise monogatari: sozo to henyo (伊勢物語 : 創造と変容)
Yumeno Kyusaku (夢野久作)

Religious Studies
Tendaishu zensho (天台宗全書)

History
Kibi dango (驥尾團子)
Mangaban Nihon no rekishi (漫画版日本の歴史)

DVDs
Kyoto Gionmatsuri (京都祗園祭)
Gekido no kiroku (激怒の記録)
Dokyumento Taiheiyo Senso (ドキュメント太平洋戦争)
Nihongo de kuraso (にほんごでくらそう)
Nishi no Majo ga shinda (西の魔女が死んだ)
Maiko haaaan!!! (舞妓 haaaan!!!)

Until the end of March 2010, our Asahi Shinbun’s Kikuzo Visual II database will include pdf images of the paper’s shukusatsuban small print editions published between 1926 and 1945.

Instructions on accessing the archive:
1) log onto into your VPN and access Kikuzo via the information page
2) choose the 朝日新聞縮刷版 (Asahi Shinbun shukusatsuban) tab
3) 1926-1945 should be pre-selected

Please e-mail me if you have any feedback regarding this resource.

We are currently running a trial of Koseisha’s Zasshi kiji sakuin shusei, an index of Japanese periodicals that covers materials published from the Meiji Period to today. The database includes the full National Diet Library periodicals’ index, but is especially useful for those looking for resources published before 1948.

To access this index:
1) log into your VPN
2) go to the information page
3) click on “via the web”
4) click on 詳細検索

The trial ends October 24, 2009.

For more information on this database, check out this brochure (pdf).

I would appreciate any feedback you may have regarding this resource. Please e-mail me with your comments.

Today the Emperor and Empress of Japan visited UBC Asian Centre, and we had the opportunity to show them three items from UBC Library’s collection. I have listed the works below, for those who are interested.

Ise monogatari utakaruta, a set of late-Edo uta-garuta (poem cards) that we acquired for the Asian Library just this year.

The following two maps, both from Rare Books and Special Collections’ Japanese Maps of the Tokugawa Era collection.

Bankoku Sozu (萬國総図), part a and part b

Kanagawa ko oezu (神奈川港大絵図)

Ise Monogatari Utakaruta

As of today, UBC students and faculty will be able to access Asahi Kikuzo II Visual. This database includes 5.8 million articles in full text from Asahi publications including the Asahi Shinbun newspaper (1945-present), AERA weekly magazine (May 1988-present) and Shukan Asahi weekly magazine.

To link to this resource, please see the information page.

To access from home, you must be logged into your VPN.

TomoeArts will be staging a performance entitled Ten Nights of Dream, based on the 1908 Natsume Sôseki work (夢十夜). The show will feature performer and UBC instructor Colleen Lanki, and the May 22 event will include a talk on Natsume Sôseki by UBC Asian Studies Professor Sharalyn Orbaugh.

Event details:
May 21, 22 & 23
8:30pm (note: Dr. Orbaugh’s lecture @ 7pm, Fri May 22)
Centre A, 2 West Hastings Street, Vancouver

For more on the events, including ticketing information, check out the TomoeArts performances page.

For the month of May, we will be having a trial of Yomiuri Shinbun’s Yomidas Rekishikan ヨミダス歴史館 database. The database is keyword searchable and includes over 10 million articles from the newspaper from 1874 to present.

To access this resource

1. Log on to your VPN
2. Go to the site: https://database.yomiuri.co.jp/rekishikan/

Check out the information page for more details.

Your feedback is essential to determining whether or not we will purchase this database in the future. Please e-mail me and let me know how useful you found the resource.

Please check out the Image Use Protocol website from the National Coordinating Council on Japanese Language Resources (NCC) :
http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~ncc/imageuse/index.html

The site is specifically designed to help Japanese Studies scholars outside of Japan attain the proper rights to use images in their scholarly publications. This guide provides an overview of Japanese copyright law, as well as templates that can be used to request copyright permission.

The NCC is looking for feedback on the site, and requests that comments be sent to vbestor@fas.harvard.edu by Friday, April 17. The site will go down after this date, but will come back “fully live” by the end of the month.

Starting this month, we will have access to a new version of JapanKnowledge called JapanKnowledge Plus. In addition to having Jitsu 字通 kanji dictionary and all the resources previously accessible through JapanKnowledge, this new version includes the online version of the Nihon Kokugo Daijiten 日本国語大辞典　(or Nikkoku Online). The search interface has also been updated.

If you have JapanKnowledge bookmarked, please note that we now have a new URL for the site:
http://www.jkn21.com/

Alternatively, you can access the database via the information page. Remember that you must be logged onto your VPN in order to use the database.

Finally, separate access to Jitsu has been discontinued. You must therefore log onto JapanKnowledge in order to access this resource.

CiNii has a new search interface. If you have the site bookmarked, ensure that you are using the following url:
http://ci.nii.ac.jp/