197Research Trends

Digital Archive Projects at the Center for the Study ofAsian Cultures at Kansai University
HINO Yoshihiro*

1. Introduction
From 2011 the Center for the Study of Asian Cultures (CSAC) has beenworking on the project of digitalizing archives related to East Asian studies
held in the Kansai University Library and at CSAC. We have been archivinga broad range of material, from books, art objects, seals, and other physical“things” to travelogues held at the Center and “information” gained fromfieldwork done by researchers at Chinese temples and in Hue, Vietnam. We
have also been creating databases to store the archived data. These archives
and databases are available to the public on the web platform called CSAC
Digital Archives.1 In addition to the databases of written texts, temples andshrines, monuments, art and historical documents, and ancient texts that wehave already made public, we plan to systematically make available databases
on topography, films and performances, photographs of China, documents onshipping, and on Vietnam. In addition, we are developing the tools necessary
to build databases for the 3-D reconstruction of a Sogdian tomb, individual
seals and books of seals from Hakuen Shoin academy, extraction programsfor geographic information, and for building indices for full-text data. TheCSAC archives will be explained below.

2. The Databases
2.1 Document databases
At CSAC we have been digitalizing valuable texts stored at the Kansai
University Library, mainly personal collections and rare books. We are also
moving forward on digitalizing and opening to the public texts owned* Hino Yoshihiro 氷野善寛 is a postdoctoral fellow in the Center for the Study of Asia
Cultures at Kansai University.
1 http://www.db1.csac.kansai-u.ac.jp/csac/

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Journal of Cultural Interaction in East Asia Vol. 7 2016privately by CSAC scholars and documents held at other institutions whenever they have been requested by CSAC researchers because the content
corresponds with the research topics at CSAC. At the heart of the digitalization project is the work done by the photography team organized within
CSAC. The data is made public through the document database within theCSAC Digital Archives.
The most representative private collections from the Kansai University
Library that are being digitalized are listed below. (Approximate numbers ofdocuments held are in parentheses.)
1). Naitō Bunko (33,500 documents). The documents consist mainly ofNaitō Konan’s old collection of classical Chinese texts. It also contains thescroll mountings of Shu Shunsui [Zhu Zhiyu] Sensei Shukan (朱舜水先生手簡;
Letters of Master Zhu Zhiyu) and Ra Shuku gen [Luo Zhenyu] Sanji rinshinken
jōfuku (羅叔言參事臨秦權條幅; Wall Painting of Counsellor Extraordinary Luo
Shuyan’s Qin Rights). The authenticity is uncertain, but from what isconveyed by Kan fudei (漢封泥; stamps for sealing documents), and letters toKonan clarify the relationship of people who were interacting with him at thetime. There are 10,000 of these letters. We have digitalized all of them but
because they contain personal information we have not been able to makethem public on the internet.
2). Nagasawa Bunko (30,497 documents). These are mainly the Chinese
texts from the old Library of Nagasawa Kikuya. This is a collection ofvernacular fiction, Chinese dramas, Ryukyuan Mandarin documents, and“Tōwa” (Chinese texts of the mid-Tokugawa period) documents.
3). Nakamura Bunko (33, 491 documents). These are mainly Japanese
literary documents from the old Library of Nakamura Yukihiko. It is acollection mainly of printed books and abridgements of the Edo period, andclassical Chinese texts as represented by the unique text, Shangshu zhushu(Commentaries on the Book of Documents) from the Southern Song period.
4) Masuda Bunko (16,184 documents). This is the old Library of Masuda
Wataru, a scholar of Lu Xun. It contains a book entitled Zhongguo xiaoshuo
shilue (A Brief History of Chinese Fiction) given by Lu Xun to Masuda. Thecollection contains books with comments written by Masuda when he wastranslating, as well as documents related to the coming to Asia of Westernlearning.
5). Yoshida Bunko (2,479 documents) This is the old Library of Yoshida
Isaburō. It is a smallish collection that focuses mainly on international relations in Asia.
6). Hakuen Bunko (16,954 documents). The books in this collection comeoriginally from Hakuen Shoin, a private Confucian academy in Osaka. It isthe Library of the Hakuen Shoin that extends over the three generations andDigital Archive Projects at the Center for the Study of Asian Cultures at Kansai University 199

four heads of the Hakuen Shoin Academy: the academy’s founder, FujisawaTōgai, his oldest son, Fujisawa Nangaku; Fujisawa Nangaku’s oldest son,Fujisawa Kōku; and Fujisawa Kōha, the second son of Nangaku. The collection contains many manuscripts written by each man as well as many dogeared, treasured tomes.
In addition to the collections mentioned above, we are digitalizing thematerial in the Iwasaki Bunko, Hirose Bunko, Genbudō Bunko, and othercollections. We are also digitalizing material related to Japanese history
purchased by Kansai University Library through a 1964 private university
grant. These documents are not being systemically digitalized by collection;rather, the researchers and scholars at CSAC select the documents they thinknecessary for research on East Asia to be digitalized. These materials are not
only available through the CSAC Digital Archives, but are also directly
accessible through the KOALA2 Library search system used by the Kansai
University Library.
Personally-held collections that we have been digitalizing include Chinese
language and Chinese language-education related texts from the old Libraryof Ozaki Minoru (Professor Emeritus in the humanities department of KansaiUniversity), CSAC Professor Uchida Keiichi’s personal collection, and over
10,000 books donated by Nihon University Professor Emeritus Masuzawa
Akio, a scholar of Chinese educational history. All of the hard copies of thesetexts are on the bookshelves of CSAC. When the materials on Chinese
language education in the umbrella organization of CSAC, the Institute ofOriental and Occidental Studies, are included, the collection comprises one of
the world’s largest collections of Chinese language education from the latter
nineteenth to early twentieth centuries, all of which are in the process ofbeing digitalized. In addition, we are digitalizing the collections of CSAC
members, such as that of Professor Inui Yoshihiko on Edo period Chineseclassical texts for children, Professor Okumura Kayoko’s documents on
Chinese language interpreters in the Edo period, Center Director Matsuura
Akira’s documents on shipping, and Professors Shen Guowei’s and Uchida
Keiichi’s English-Chinese dictionaries. We also plan to make public otherholdings through cooperation with university libraries outside KansaiUniversity, including Aichi University Library’s The Awakening of China,Problems of the Far East, Foreign Practice, and the Guanhua zhinan (官話指南) held in Kobe City University of Foreign Studies. Further, we have madearrangements to digitalize rare old books, such as the original copy ofRomance of the Three Kingdoms, held in the Escorial Palace in Spain andrediscovered by CSAC Professor Inoue Taizan, as well as other extant clas2 http://opac.lib.kansai-u.ac.jp/

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sical Chinese texts and other documents held in institutions on the Iberian
Peninsula (Spain and Portugal).
The number and content of the documents photographed so far are listedbelow. Of these, about half are already open to the public and can be read.
Kansai University Library
吉田Yoshida4中村広瀬

Nakamura Hirose
24
10

玄武洞

内藤

長澤Genbudō Naitō
33272

増田

Nagasawa Masada
388391

岩崎Isawaki
379

泊園

Hakuen1897

RareBooks
527

Personal Collections, etc.
乾鱒澤Inui

Masazawa
81

松浦

Matsuura

164

48

内田・尾崎

奥村

沈

Uchida/Ōzaki Okumura
832

Shen
8

10

Institute of Orientaland OccidentalStudies
87

Other Institutions
Aichi University3Kobe City University
Spainof Foreign Studies
218The reason the digitalized documents of the Hakuen Bunko dominate thelist is that we have been jointly working on the project with CSAC member
Professor Azuma Jūji from an early stage, digitalizing the Fujisawas’ own
writings. We created a specialized website for the Hakuen Bunko collection
entitled WEB Hakuen Bunko in addition to the one accessible from theCSAC Digital Archives. Besides the search system we had already built, inJune 2014 we succeeded in creating and making public an always up-to-dateindex of bibliographies registered in the database that is available to theFig. 1 PDF Index (Left) and Details on Database Screen (Right)
By clicking on the book title in the PDF index on the left, it is possible to link to the detailed
screen on the right.

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public as a PDF file. By linking from the PDF item to the database, the user
can do a general search even if he does not know the original keyword.
Thus, CSAC’s project to digitalize works and open them to the public hasmade it possible to see documents in the Kansai University Library, theCSAC Digital Archives, and WEB Hakuen Bunko on a browser. We are using
a customized version of BookReader, an open-source viewer provided byInternet Archives. In contrast to the majority of horizontally-written texts in
the Internet Archives’ BookReader, where books open from the left, CSAC isdigitalizing on the precept of right-opening books. Also, because it is necessary to do full-text searches with multi-bite characters, we have created auniquely customized version to handle this difference. The reason we chose
this viewer was that because most viewers use FLASH at many organizationsin Japan today, the problem arises that users cannot read such texts ontablets, smart phones, and other terminals that are being used to access sites
in increasing numbers. To handle this problem we used a viewer built mainly
on JavaScript and html.

Fig. 2 CSAC Digital Archives Document Database Screen (Left) and BookReader (Right)

For full-text documents, not only can full-text searches be done simultaneously in multiple documents within the databases, but now it is also
possible to do full-text searches on each individual document within theviewer. This full-text search is built on Groonga, a full-text search engine
with open-source custom store functionality, and MySQL, which is based on
the Library Mroonga that allows high-speed searches of full texts. It is also
possible to search variant Sinograph forms, such as traditional and simplified
Chinese characters, pre-war and post-war Japanese characters, and dictionaries with Sinographic variant forms.

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Fig. 3Full-text Searches

In addition to written texts, we have also made publically available on
WEB Hakuen Bunko the “Hakuen seal collection,” which is a digitalized
database of stamps and seals originally from the Hakuen Bunko. In thisHakuen seal collection, seals can be searched from the seal face, from a side
subsection, or from the explanation. In the detailed screen, seal faces andbooks of seals can be displayed.

Fig. 4

Hakuen Seal Collection

2.2 Art and Historical Documents Databases
In addition to the written document databases opened to the public, weare also preparing to make accessible databases on art and historical documents, including several hundreds of items held in the personal collections
and rare book archives in the Kansai University Library. There is a broad
range of material, from historical documents to art objects; at the heart of this

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database are the more than 350 paintings from the Edo-period Osaka painting
circles. We are planning to make available to the public the many woodblock
prints of elephants, beginning with Ogata Tankō’s nineteenth-century Zō noemaki, a depiction of an elephant brought to Japan from abroad in the Edo
period.3Fig. 5 Art and Historical Document Database

We are going to display digitalized data with the image-specific viewer
ImageViewer in addition to BookReader, with which we have made thedocument database open to the public.

Fig. 6 Art and Historical Document Database ImageViewer

3 From the explanation in http://www.db1.csac.kansai-u.ac.jp/csac/art.php

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Like BookReader, this viewer also does not use FLASH, but is built using
only JavaScript and html. Unlike BookReader, however, it can be used tosmoothly expand or shrink each page of images as appropriate.
2.3 Ancient Document Database
In terms of the ancient document database, we are preparing the public
disclosure of mainly ancient books kept in the Kansai University.
LibraryCurrently we are experimenting with just three items: a black-seal
document that belonged to Oda Nobunaga; a letter written by Toyotomi
Hideyoshi;, and a draft note written by the shugo (governor) of Yamashiro
Province, Yūki Mitsubushi, but we plan to open more documents to thepublic in the future. In terms of function, it is possible to view the documents
by using searches for reprints, full-text searches, PDF displays, andBookReader.

Fig. 7 Ancient Document Database

2.4 Monument Database
This database was built by CSAC member Professor Moribe Yutaka andhis research group. They are now mainly collecting and disclosing Sogdian
epitaph inscriptions. Not only are the screen images of the originals
displayed, but so is the monument text data that is carved into the epitaphs.

Fig. 8Monument Database

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Fig. 93 D Model of Sogdian Funerary Objects Being Developed

In addition to creation of the monument database, we have also built a3-D model of Sogdian funerary objects. This project involved replication invirtual space of eight separate stone slabs thought to have been excavated inAnyang at the beginning of the twentieth century. Today these stone slabs areheld in the Museum of East Asian Art in Cologne, the Guimet Museum in
Paris, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Freer Gallery of Art inWashington D.C., respectively. Because it is very difficult to reassemble theactual pieces of stone we built a 3-D model from photos and animation toreplicate what it looked like at the time.
2.5 Chinese Photo Database
The database of Chinese photos was built with the aim of uploading rare
photos of China held at CSAC. The data available to the public is organizedaccording to who originally owned the photos. The most important collectionis the thousands of photos taken by Kansai University Professor Emeritus
Fujiyoshi Masumi during fieldwork. The photos are of China between the1980s and 1990s. The database also contains 1500 photos taken in China
between the 1970s and 1980s and donated to CSAC by Meiji Gakuin

Fig. 10Database of Photos of China

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University Professor Emeritus Enomoto Hideo. In particular, the photos taken
in August, 1975 during the Cultural Revolution, are extremely valuable.
Besides these, in the collection of texts donated by the aforementioned
Masuzawa Akio there are photos taken in China during the 1920s organized
into personal albums. Among the photos are pictures of the Great Wall, theSummer Palace of Beijing, and other tourist sites. The collection alsocontains photos of a person named Sugimoto, from the Mitsui Shoin
Academy, including Wu Taishou, the cousin of Wu Qitai, who penned theGuanhua zhinan and was the headmaster of the Mitsui Shoin. There are noother known photos of Wu Taishou aside from those in this album. In addition, there are many albums related to schools in pre-war Taiwan and Chinathat are of great use for researching people who were important at the time.
We are thinking of creating a database for these photos.
We are building this database by using a system that makes it possible tosearch not only by photos and keywords, but by GPS information, such aslocale.
2.6 Database of Temples and Shrines
The database of temples and shrines centers on the research group underCSAC Professor Nikaido Yoshiro, and makes accessible to the public data on
local Daoist and Buddhist temples found mainly on the Chinese mainland andin Taiwan. Even without a keyword, by mapping the location of the temple orshrine it is possible to search directly from the map. Information on eachtemple and shrine includes the name, location, year built, deity enshrined,people related, research on the temple, and other information. It is possible tosearch such information using singular or multiple search arguments.

Fig. 11

Database of Temples and Shrines

2.7 Other Databases under Construction
Besides the above databases that are in the process of being made public,

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we are also progressing on the project of digitalization and creating a database for Center Director Matsuura Akira’s materials on shipping. We arepreparing to make various types of data available in a unified system,including shipping routes in East Asia, guidebooks, photos of ships, andjournals.
Our next project is the building of the database for Sugawara Yoshino’s
research group on films and performance. This is a database of film andperformance information carried in the newspaper Shen Bao (申報) publishedin Shanghai from the late nineteenth to early twentieth centuries. As in thecase of the database for temples and shrines, GPS information for all performances will be uploaded, making it possible to search not just from articles
but from maps as well.
Besides digitalization of material centering on the documents I’ve
discussed above, we are also working on architecture for a database that uses
GPS information gained from topographical data from fieldwork and travelogues. It is an attempt to create a database based on analysis of informationfrom Aurel Stein’s second Central Asia expedition, the results of which are in
Stein’s report, Serindia; GPS data; and travelogues written by the Ming period
travel writer Xu Xiake.

Fig. 12Mapping Work (Overall) Using Google Earth

Lastly, we also plan to create in stages a Vietnam database for documents
such as cadastral books and genealogies from Hue, and fieldwork records
from Hue conducted by the Institute for Cultural Interaction Studies (ICIS) atKansai University, such as fieldwork records, photographs, and bookls.