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East Asian Studies

This guide provides access to key resources for East Asian Studies at NYU and elsewhere.

E-Books

 Book cover for the book Futari no koibito in the Maruzen E-Book Library

Language Learning

Maruzen E-Book Library
Japanese language learning reader e-books - Japanese E-books through Maruzen Ebook Library
にほんご多読ブックス/Nihongo tadoku bukkusu (34 vols.)
にほんごよむよむ文庫/Nihongo Yomuyomu bunko (43 vols.)

Click on this link or search the NYU library catalog for "Maruzen Ebooks." Once at Maruzen Ebook Library, select from the Nihongo Taishukan Tadoku books we have, or the Nihongo Yomuyomu bunko books. They are all listed together in order by title of the individual ebook.

Our subscription allows 1 user by title at a time. It is important for the user to press “閲覧終了” when finished to allow the next user to access the content. That said, if there is no use, or if you don't flip the page for 10 minutes, the user will be automatically logged out when the next user tries to access the same title. If there are no other users trying to access, the first user can access the title without any restrictions. Have fun and let your librarian know what you think!

English video tutorial of Maruzen eBook Library

For Japanese language learning, try these Ritsumeikan links:
日本語学習・日本語教育のためのリンク集 / Links for Japanese Language Learning
http://www.ritsumei.ac.jp/~kitade/links.htm

Reference Books

Japanese Dictionaries and Glossaries

JapanKnowledge
JapanKnowledge (ジャパンナレッジ) provides access to electronic versions of major dictionaries and encyclopedias - essential Japanese reference sources, as well as databases for some weekly journals and maps published in Japan. These include Nihon daihyakka zensho (日本大百科全書), Kodansha Encyclopedia of Japan (講談社), Gendai yōgo no kiso chishiki (現代用語の基礎知識), Dai Kanwa Jiten (大漢和辞典), and others.
The Dai Kanwa Jiten (大漢和辞典) now has a Vocabulary Search function in addition to the Single Kanji Search. Previously, "if you wanted to search for the word "beian" (米菴), for example, you had to find an entry of the parent character “bei” (米) first, and then look for the idiom "beian"(米菴) in the subentries. The new Vocabulary Search function streamlines this process by including idioms in the index data, meaning you can now enter idioms into the Search Box and search for them directly."

Jim Breen's (Monash University) links to dictionaries:
http://nihongo.monash.edu/onlinejdic.html

Weblio
http://www.weblio.jp/

Literary Texts online

  • Japanese Censorship Collection at The Library of Congress: An online archive comprising more than one thousand marked-up copies of government-censored monographs and galley proofs (fiction and non-fiction) from prewar Japan. Available on-site at LC, but those available offsite can be seen here.
  • Aozora Bunko (青空文庫) contains several thousand works of Japanese fiction and non-fiction e-texts, both premodern and modern. 

  • Japan PEN Club: A wide range of digitized texts are available here, including poetry, fiction, and children's literature.
  • Japanese Text Initiative: A collaboration of the University of Virginia Library Electronic Text Center and the University of Pittsburgh East Asian Library to make texts of classical Japanese literature available online.
  • J-Texts: Many of the texts here are pre-modern, but it also includes a link to the complete works of Dazai Osamu.
  • Kindai Digital Library: A National Diet Library project that has digitized more than 55,000 Meiji period texts.
  • PD Toshoshitsu: An eclectic collection, including works not found elsewhere. 
  • Japanese Historical Texts Initiative (JHTI, UC Berkeley)

    • Search through a vast amount of source material in the Japanese original and the English translation
    • Browse the Japanese original and/or the English translation of any word or string of words, or any character or string of characters

    The texts currently included in the JHTI database are:

    • Kojiki (712)
    • Nihon Shoki (720)
    • Izumo Fudoki (733), Harima Fudoki (around 715), Bungo Fudoki (around 733), Hizen Fudoki (around 733), Hitachi Fudoki (721)
    • Shoku Nihongi (covering the years 697 to 791)
    • Kogoshūi (807)
    • Nittō Guhō Junrei Kōki (completed in 839-849)
    • Engi Shiki (submitted to the Imperial Court in 927)
    • Yamato Monogatari (completed around 950)
    • Ōkagami (covering the years 866 to 1027)
    • Eiga Monogatari (covering the years 794 to 1185)
    • Gukanshō (completed in 1219)
    • Azuma Kagami (covering the years 1180 to 1266)
    • Heike Monogatari [The Tale of the Heike] (compiled prior to 1330) - forthcoming
    • Jinnō Shōtōki (completed around 1339)
    • Taiheiki (covering the years 1318 to 1368)
    • Tokushi Yoron (completed in 1712)
    • Ryūshi Shinron (1759)
    • Nisshinkan Dōjikun (1803)
    • Shinron (1825)
    • Meiji Ikō Jinja Kankei Hōrei Shiryō [Governmental Orders Concerning Shinto Shrines After the First Year of Meiji] (Japanese text only)
    • Kokutai no Hongi [Cardinal Principles of the National Polity] (1937)

Art, Culture, and Religion

Japanese Animation Databaseアニメ大全」
commercial animation works since 1917. https://animedb.jp/about 

Cultural Japan
A new platform that collects digital information related to Japanese culture published in museums and libraries from around the world. Try this site for information related to netsuke, maps, photography, paintings, architecture, tea ceremony, toys, and important books like The Tale of Genji. 

Japanese Exhibition Art Catalogs
Getty Research Institute (GRI) and the Tokyo National Research for Cultural Properties (TNRICP) has resulted in the digitization of more than 900 exhibition catalogs on Japanese art, which are now freely available and downloadable on the Getty Research Portal.

Exquisite Patterns: Japanese Textile Design Books  
British Library
"Showcases the British Library’s collection of kimono pattern and design books. It displays the variety and vibrancy of these works, from their origins in the mid-17th century until the early 20th century."

Glass Photographic Plates of the Murals in the Kondo Hall of Horyuji temple Digital Viewer
Horyuji Temple made available to the public the digital images of the glass photographic plates of the murals at the Golden Hall (法隆寺金堂壁画写真ガラス原版). 

Kaleidoscope of Books (National Diet Library of Japan, in English)
Digital exhibitions from the NDL feature articles on a variety of topics including Japanese Architecutre, Japan in Africa, the Japanese koto, Japanese game of Go, Hot Springs, Department Stores, and more!

Kōgyo: The Art of Noh
The University of Pittsburgh Library System has digitized four sets of color woodblock prints by the artist Tsukioka Kōgyo’s (1869-1927). The online collection contains 632 digitized prints from the four sets, along with over 200 Japanese synopses of Noh plays with English summaries provided by P.G. O’Neill in his A Guide to Nō (Hinoki Shoten, 1964).

Kumaichi Hiraoka Postcard Collection (University of Hawaii at Manoa Library)
Most of the postcards were made before WWII, including scenes and sites of the Russo-Japanese War, temples, shrines, and towns in Japan. 

NCC's Online Guide to Research Access for Japanese Museums, Libraries, and Archives
For those who wish to conduct research in Japanese academic research institutions (Museum Library Archives)

Portraits of Modern Japanese Historical Figures (National Diet Library of Japan)
portrait photographs of approximately 850 statesmen, government officials, military officers, businessmen, scholars and artists
(click for Japanese)

NDL Image Bank (National Diet Library of Japan)
showcases items from the National Diet Library's substantial collection of visual materials, including ukiyo-e woodblock prints, books, magazines, and other forms of published media.

Woodblock Prints
Free to Use and Re-use: Japanese Fine Prints at The Library of Congress. 17th-20th century woodblock prints
Pre-1915 prints at LOC

Festivals and Image Collections

The Gion Festival Digital Museum 2020: The Past, Present, and Future of the Gion Festival / 祇園祭デジタル・ミュージアム2020-祇園祭の過去・現在・未来

The Art Research Center (ARC) at Ritsumeikan University has digitized cultural resources related to the summer Gion festival, including the Funeboko and Hachiman-yama floats, as well as the Nagae Family Residence, a large-scale Kyo-machiya designated a cultural property by the city of Kyoto. This collection contains maps, audio-visual materials, photographs and images, paintings, old videos, and documents.

Films and Videos

Teikoku Kinema Engei Kabushiki Kaisha / 帝国キネマ演芸株式会社 (Teikine 帝キネ).
This collection summarizes the activities of Teikoku Kinema in Osaka. Openly available and created by Prof. Keiko Sasakawa at Kansai University.

Japan Film Resources Online (JFRO) / 「映画資料所在地情報検索システム(JFROL)
JFRO is a film resource location information search system of multiple libraries in Japan (collections of Toei Uzumasa, Shochiku Otani, Kawakita, Matsunaga Bunko, and the Waseda Enpaku), developed by VIPO (the Visual Industry Promotion Organization). The search indicates where non-film materials such as scenarios and posters, flyers, still photos, magazines, and more, are located. For more information, check here

Japanese History Resources

Online Japanese Newspapers

Yomidas Rekishikan database Includes the full text of the Yomiuri shinbun from its initial publication in 1874 to the present, as well as its English language equivalent, the Daily Yomiuri, and a biographical dictionary of modern Japanese figures. Articles are indexed by keyword to 8/31/1986 and can be searched full-text and by keyword from 9/1/1986 to the present. For help, see the NEW ENGLISH USER GUIDE at the very bottom of the Home page, or the new Video Guides to searching Yomidas (with subtitles). 
Articles in foreign languages from the Meiji and Taisho eras are available as well. Read original articles in English, French, German and Russian in the Yomiuri shinbun in four different columns between 1904 and 1918.
   In Diverse Tongues (1908~1909) in English, French and German
   The Yomiuri Shimbun (1910~1918) in English
   Le Yomiuri Shimbun (1914~1918) in French
   「欧文小品」 Short pieces in Western languages (1904~1906) in English, French, German and Russian
You can access stories from the 「すぐ読む お勧め連載」 list on the main page of the Yomidas Rekishikan site. Scroll down to The Japan News section, and the stories are at the very bottom.
NEW: NYU now has access to the Regional Sections (Showa Era) feature, which allows searching of stories that appeared in various regional editions of the newspaper.

Japan News Digital Archive
The Japan News provides access to the English-language daily from the publisher The Yomiuri Shimbun. Hosted on the Global Press Archive platform, this newspaper archive includes over 27,251 issues covering the period of 1955-present.
(Vendor-provided temporary expanded access to support the current remote learning scenario, access through October, 2020.)

Asahi Shimbun Cross Search database
Asahi Shimbun Cross Search takes over from Kikuzo II Visual (Asahi Shinbun, 聞蔵Ⅱビジュアル, 朝日新聞記事データベース). It is a newspaper database for Asahi shinbun containing articles published from 1879 to the present. Also includes articles from the weekly magazines Aera as well as Shūkan Asahi, from the annual new-word dictionary Chiezō, Asahi shinbun jinbutsu dētabēsu, and Asahi shinbun rekishi shashin ākaibu. It contains image data of the pages printed during the Meiji, the Taishō and the early Shōwa periods.  It contains more than 12 million items of articles and advertisements of the paper since its first issue in 1879. This database also has an extensive archive of historical photographs, a Who's Who dictionary, Asahi gurafu, full text of the contents of Aera magazine from 1985 to the present. It also includes an English language news database with articles published in Asahi shinbun's English language newspaper. It includes the International Herald Tribune, The Asahi shinbun, and AJW (Asia & Japan Watch), an online English news portal that goes back to 2001.  

A Japanese language video guide to Asahi Shimbun Cross-Search: (click on transcript to read in English)
https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__youtu.be_e0qdmPsi0MI&d=DwIFaQ&c=slrrB7dE8n7gBJbeO0g-IQ&r=OJqCKRD4V83Agxai_Z9cQw&m=G5xueCb39MRws72x60MhjJHUfwmCn_OiJXFNhzwVJ9w977PxJyZr9v0GdA1_KlUX&s=LEC_DZcHrxRQHRVaGc257a_ZotVv0vLOOLceNQ2jc9A&e=

Factiva 
Factiva is a resource for U.S. and international newspapers (html full text only, no images or print layout versions), news transcripts, trade journals, newsletters, industry snapshots, and market data charts for recent stock prices. Factiva contains Japanese newspapers, including Asahi, Mainichi, Yomiuri, Nikkei kogyo, Nikkei sangyo news, Jiji news, and many local Japanese newspapers from Hakkaido Shinbun to Okinawa Times. If interested in a long list of the Japanese newspapers in Factiva, contact the East Asian Studies Librarian!

Japan Weekly Mail on the Internet Archive
Weekly edition of the Japan Mail newspaper published in Yokohama 1870-1917. The Mail became part of the Japan Times in 1918. 

PressReader
PressReader (formerly PressDisplay) provides access to newspapers from around the world, often in the original language. Dates of coverage vary from the most current three months to the most current decade. Newspapers are presented in a browsable, "as printed" visual format. Create a password using your NYU email, then Select Country under Publications to select Japan. 

Japanese Articles via Databases--In Japanese

Japanese Language E-Resources A-Z

Japanese Resources Via Academic Institutions

Japanese E-Resources by Academic Institutions Guide: from the University of Kansas
This guide includes websites for scholarly research, discovery systems, digital archives, and more.

Notable Japanese Collections in North America: created by the North American Coordinating Council on Japanese Library Resources (NCC)