1

Communicating the Value of Business Archives to BusinessArchives: The Shibusawa BA Project and Corporate Archives
in Japan

Yuko Matsuzaki
Business Archives Specialist
Information Resources Center, Shibusawa Eiichi Memorial Foundation

Published on April 28, 2017

* This article was presented in the panel session, ‘Communicating the Value of Business Archives to
Our Stakeholders’, at the 2017 ICA SBA conference “The Future Roles of Business Archives”, heldat the Eric Ericsson Hall, Stockholm, Sweden, 5-6 April, 2017.

https://www.shibusawa.or.jp/center/ba/bunken/pdf/doc012_icasba_stockholm.pdf

2Unlike many of you here today, I do not work for a corporate archives. I am theBusiness Archives Specialist at the Shibusawa Eiichi Memorial Foundation. Because ofthis I have what I imagine to be a different outlook on who exactly I consider to be astakeholder. Let me explain by giving a brief overview of the Shibusawa Eiichi
Memorial Foundation.

Shibusawa Eiichi (1840-1931) was an entrepreneur and philanthropist who wasat the forefront of the modernization of Japan. In 1886 a study group was formed byyoung boarders at the Shibusawa home who wanted to learn from Eiichi. The groupdeveloped over the years; becoming incorporated as a foundation in 1924, dedicating
itself to memorial projects after Eiichi’s death in 1931, and finally realizing a long-heldgoal and opening the Shibusawa Memorial Museum in 1982. The appointment of a newpresident in the late 1990s provided an impetus to the Foundation to grapple with
fundamental issues of how to be relevant and meaningful in the 21st century. As a result,
the Foundation dedicated itself to becoming internationally oriented and embracing
digital technologies.

Today the Foundation is a small charitable organization with two missions: tohonor the accomplishments and ideals of Shibusawa Eiichi and to improve ethicalstandards and corporate culture in business based on Eiichi’s philosophies.

The latter of these two is particularly important given what has, until recently,
been a sad state of affairs for business archives in Japan. It has long been common forbusiness men and women in Japan to worry that their career was ending if they werehttps://www.shibusawa.or.jp/center/ba/bunken/pdf/doc012_icasba_stockholm.pdf

3transferred to the department within their company that was in charge of old company
records and other materials for the compilation of company histories for special
anniversaries. Right up until the end of the 20th century few active corporate archives
programs existed in Japan and there were almost no professional archivists employed byJapanese companies.

Given these circumstances, the Shibusawa Eiichi Memorial Foundation began
cooperating with groups such as the Business Archives Association (BAA) of Japan on
an innovative project called the Business Archives Project that aimed to promoteawareness of corporate archives, especially in regards to the value that archival records
and artifacts can contribute to a range of functions within a company, and the importantrole of staff running archival programs as the active providers of heritage information.

I have managed the project since its inception in 2004. The first stage of theproject was to build a directory of business archives in Japan. While such a directory
exists in North America and similar information may be available from professionalorganizations in many countries around the world, in Japan, however, no such directory
existed. We cooperated with the members of BAA and spent some time to gather
information on business archives in Japan and the directory was made public on theFoundation’s website on July 22, 2008.

In 2007 the Shibusawa Foundation collaborated with the SAA and others tohold a joint seminar in Tokyo on archives in Japan and the US. The seminar not only
increased understanding on corporate archives in Japan but also led to the development

https://www.shibusawa.or.jp/center/ba/bunken/pdf/doc012_icasba_stockholm.pdf

4of valuable professional and personal contacts such as with SBA member Becky Tousey,
which ultimately led to the Shibusawa Foundation joining the ICA in 2008 and me
becoming a member of the steering committee of the ICA SBA.

These developments improved the information dissemination portion of theBusiness Archives Project particularly through content for an e-zine newsletter andwebsite. The e-zine, BA Tsushin, or “The Business Archives News,” was launched inbeta form in 2007 and officially on February 15, 2008, in order to share resources inJapanese on foreign business archives. Content includes summaries of events or newpublications on business archives, primarily in English-speaking regions. Since its
launch, the e-zine has been published roughly every month with subscribership rising
gradually over the years. All issues are now available on the Foundation’s website,
providing access to back issues and allowing non-subscribers to read the e-zine.

Longer articles, particularly Japanese translations of presentations or articles bySBA members as well as Japanese and English versions of many of my presentations
are shared directly on the Foundation’s website. The first uploaded was a Japanesetranslation of an inspirational presentation by Elizabeth Adkins and there are currently
nearly a dozen articles available. The next to be added is a Japanese translation of animportant article by the SBA’s very own Paul Lasewicz. Both these articles and thee-zine not only offer free access to what I feel is important information but also support
the goals of the Business Archives Project.

The SBA symposium held in Tokyo in 2011 further increased international

https://www.shibusawa.or.jp/center/ba/bunken/pdf/doc012_icasba_stockholm.pdf

5networking and information sharing in Japan. The publication of a book with thepresentations in Japanese translation made the symposium’s valuable content available
to a wider audience. This type of sharing obviously benefits business archives
communities, but from the Foundation’s standpoint it is the reason for starting theBusiness Archives Project in the first place, as I believe that an increase in knowledge
and recognition of business archives will further the Foundation’s goal of improving
ethical standards and corporate culture in business.

The Foundation believes that proper recordkeeping and the effective use ofarchives can play a vital role in increasing corporate accountability – concept that is still
relatively new to Japanese companies. A survey of the Nihon Keizai Shimbun, a daily
Japanese business newspaper, for the 41 years from 1976 until 2016 shows neither theloan word “accountability” nor a Japanese term created to express the same sentiment,setsumei sekinin, appeared with any regularity until the late 1990s. Usage increased as arise in foreign investments led to demands for improvements to Japanese businesspractices in these and related areas. The graph shows the number of times the two terms
were used in the newspaper and thus cannot act as an indicator as to whether corporate
accountability itself has increased within Japan, but I feel that it demonstrates anincreased awareness of accountability and a chance for corporate archives todemonstrate their value.

In preparing for my presentation today I reached out to my contacts atcorporate archives throughout Japan and other subscribers of the e-zine, those that I
would consider to be the stakeholders of the Business Archives Project. I asked them forhttps://www.shibusawa.or.jp/center/ba/bunken/pdf/doc012_icasba_stockholm.pdf

6

their comments on the Project and recognition of corporate archives within theircompanies. The director of one corporate archives & museum commented that although
he was interested in learning about issues related to business archives around the world
it was too difficult for him and others in the field to find such information themselves.
The e-zine, he said, provided this valuable information and the project as a whole isinspirational for archivists in the field. This latter sentiment was echoed by a number ofothers. An archivist with another company commented that she has used specific casestudies she has gained from the e-zine as examples when discussing strategies withcoworkers. Other comments included numerous requests for more information and casestudies on business archives within Japan.

This shows that while the Business Archives Project, in particular the e-zine BA
Tsushin, has become a recognized and trusted resource in the archives community inJapan, there is still much that it can accomplish. I am heartened by the fact that changes
can be seen in various companies throughout Japan. More companies are establishingspecialized divisions for archives management and increasingly these are being staffedby younger employees, by women, and, especially importantly, by those recruited fromoutside the company with expert knowledge and skills. There is still a long way to go,but in the context of the current business environment in Japan, I feel our emphasis on
the value of business archives, especially that of corporate accountability, is a source oftrust for our corporate archive stakeholders such as the Toyota Archives, with whom wehave cooperated for the last few years.

https://www.shibusawa.or.jp/center/ba/bunken/pdf/doc012_icasba_stockholm.pdf