JAPANESE COMPANY HISTORIES INTEREST GROUP MEETING
BackgroundAt last year’s planning meeting for Japanese studies librarians in San Diego, John Campbell of
the University of Michigan challenged librarians to create opportunities for more interaction withscholars during the annual AAS meetings. In a discussion about this challenge, Maureen
Donovan of Ohio State University and Izumi Koide of the International House of Japan had theidea of inviting Katsuko Murahashi, a leading specialist on Japanese company histories andbusiness information in Japan, to join a discussion forum on Japanese company histories during
the 2001 AAS meetings. Ms. Murahashi, who is Manager, Information Resources Group of theSocial Affairs Bureau, led the team that compiled Keizai Dantai Rengokai gunenshi [Fifty year
history of the Japan Federation of Economic Organizations] (Tokyo, 1999; print and CD-ROM).
Ms. Murahashi is the author of more than eighty articles on various aspects of Japanese businessinformation. She is currently finishing a book about Japanese company histories that will update
and expand the series of twenty articles she published on the subject in Joho kunri from May
1992 to March 1996. Ms. Murahashi gave a formal presentation on Japanese histories onWednesday, March 21,200l during the meeting of the Japanese Materials Committee of theCouncil on East Asian Libraries. A revised form of this presentation appears earlier in this issueof the Journal of East Asian Libraries.
Several North American research libraries, including Ohio State and the University of Chicago,
actively collect Japanese company histories (“shashi”). This meeting of librarians and scholars
was organized to bring together librarians who collect Japanese company histories, scholars who
use them, and anyone wanting to learn more about shashi or Japanese business information.
Meeting Report
When: Saturday March 24, l:OO-2:30 pm
Where: Colorado Room of the Chicago Sheraton Hotel and Towers
Goal: This meeting was convened in order to give librarians and scholars an opportunity tomeet Katsuko Murahashi (a specialist on Japanese company histories who gave a speech at theCEAL Japanese Materials Committee meeting on Wednesday March 21) and discuss issues
related to acquiring and accessing Japanese company histories, including the possibility ofcooperative collection development.
Minutes:Four faculty members present discussed their use of company histories and/or the reason for theirinterest in these materials.
David Wittner (Utica College) noted that familiarity with the contents of a company’s publishedhistory was helpful in gaining access to unpublished corporate records. Also, he found thatmany primary documents that might not be available otherwise are included in appendices or“shiryo” sections/volumes of company histories.

50Elyssa Faison (U Oklahoma) expressed interest in company histories published before WorldWar II and wondered about the trustworthiness of data incorporated into those as well as in theones published later. Ms. Murahashi commented that prewar company histories tend to be ofhigh quality. Employees assigned to this task in those days were drawn from the elite, welleducated members of the staff. Among the classics of the company history genre is Kuo Sekken
gojunenshi (1940) written by the famous scholar, Hattori Shiso (who was hired especially for thepurpose of compiling this company’s history).
Sayuri Shimizu (Michigan State U) mentioned that she used the Keidanren Library when her
father was a member of Keidanren, but since his retirement she had been at a loss on how toaccess these materials. She was very grateful to learn that libraries are collecting them,especially within the CIC consortium. Ms. Murahashi noted that the Keidanren Llibrary is foruse by members of the organization only. The small staff’s time is taken up with providing
services for the Keidanren. However, a scholar who has a particular need to use the library cangain access by contacting someone (such as Ms. Murahashi herself).
Michael Twomey (U Michigan - Dearborn) wondered about the availability of long-term
statistical data in company histories, particularly any written in English.
In the course of this discussion the difficulties of access to archives of Japanese companies wascontrasted with the extensive information readily available in published company histories. As
far as archives are concerned, though, Mr. Okuizumi noted that some major archives (such as
Mitsui and Mitsubishi) are run professionally and are comparatively open to researchers,
although many others are not so easily accessed. The importance of approaching a company
through an intermediary (librarian, scholar, etc) was noted.
Katsuko Murahashi provided more in-depth background information on how company histories
are compiled, expanding on points that she made in her presentation at CEAL. Copies of her
handouts (library collections of shashi; used book stores carrying shashi; major references workson shashi) were available. She noted that the most extensive collections of company histories inJapan are the ones at the Kawasaki Public Library and at Ryukoku University (Kyoto). Thelatter purchased the famous private collection, Nagao Bunko. She noted that the Kawasaki
Public Library, which holds for the most part the same books as Ryukoku University, is much
more heavily used by researchers.
The earliest company histories in Japan date from the Meiji period. Most are compiled byemployees, although occasionally commercial firms (such as Nihon Keieishi Kenkyujo) are hired
to write the book for the company. In some cases documents used in compiling histories werediscarded after publication of the company history. While most shashi are published fordistribution to employees and others at the discretion of the company, some are offered for sale,such as Shochiku, Misonoza, or the various railway companies. This is because there are manyfans who are willing to pay to obtain copies. Further, despite writing “not for sale” clearly in thepublications, not a few companies actually try to recover the cost of producing the book whenorganizations that have no connection to their business request copies of the books.

51--~~_Eizaburo Okuizumi introduced the shashi collection of the University of Chicago. A decision tocollect these materials was made about twenty years ago, although without any special budget.
Faculty members and the library administration are quite interested, however, so increasing
attention is being paid to this area. Older bibliographic records created before 1987 (HarvardYenching classification) are now being changed into machine-readable format and input into the
local online system (http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/index.html).
Mr Okuizumi drew attention to
the scholarly work of Takeda Haruhito, a professor at University of Tokyo, who wrote some
excellent shashi (Kao Sekken, Keidanren sanjunenshi, etc). Ms. Murahashi noted that Professor
Takeda is one of her good friends and that they share a low opinion of the works produced under
the auspices of Nihon Keieishi Kenkyujo. MsMurahashi herself headed the team that produced
Keidanren gojunenshi, succeeding Professor Takeda in that role.
Maureen Donovan introduced the shashi collection of the Ohio State University, which wasinitiated in 1984 with the purchase of all the shashi in the Nagatoya Bookstore (759 titles in 887volumes) on the suggestion of Professor Bradley Richardson. Since then the collection has been
continuously developed through selected purchases from furuhon’ya as well as by writing to thecompanies themselves and purchasing those offered for sale. A database of Ohio State’s shashicollection was established in 1995, although it has not been updated in about 4 years.
http://eas.lib.ohio-state.edu/dbase/DbaseHP.html(bibliographies) andhttp://eas.lib.ohio-state.edu/ShashiDB/default.html(searchable database).
The collection is probably around 2,500 volumes now and is cataloged on OCLC and in the
Library’s OPAC: http://oscar.us.ohio-state.edu
The letter writing process with regard to collecting shashi was discussed in some detail. Mr.
Okuizumi read a letter that he received from a company president who expressed gratitude that U
Chicago was collecting his company’s history. Ms. Donovan circulated some letters, including
one expressing similar sentiments in a particularly heartwarming manner. She previously
discussed letter writing with Ms. Murahashi, who helped her revise the form letter that OSU
sends to companies. Copies of the revised OSU letter were distributed to those in attendance,with an understanding that they should modify its contents to reflect their own institution before
using it. She also circulated notebooks that she uses to keep track of requests sent out and recent
receipts, so that she doesn’t write for the same work twice. Techniques for learning which shashi
have recently been published were also discussed. The Senmon Toshokan Kyogikai Kanto
ChikuKyogikai maintains a web page listing recent shashi acquisitions at Japanese libraries
specializing in this area. One can check online databases by searching “nenshi” or “shashi” andlimiting to the past year or two to see which ones have been collected by libraries recently.
Action items:
1. Before closing the meeting the group made a decision to meet again at the next AAS/CEAL
conference in Washington.
2. Interested librarians should come to next year’s meeting prepared to take on responsibility forspecific areas and reach decisions about cooperative collection development to ensure thatnational coverage of these materials is as comprehensive as possible. The divisions of52

responsibility will be based on local interests, with no mutually exclusive decisions (ie, morethan one library can collect in a specific area).
3. Efforts to collect related materials (public relations materials, videotapes, etc) should beincluded in this initiative. If collection development efforts are distributed, more in-depth
collecting of industry-related sources can also be pursued.
4. The group members decided to communicate with each other freely to share information
about company addresses, success in obtaining particular works, etc. Ms. Murahashi expressed awillingness to support these efforts in any way that she could.
Attendees:
Tokiko Y. Bazzell, Japan Specialist/Bibliographer, University of Hawaii, Maureen Donovan,
Japanese Studies Librarian, Ohio State University, Elyssa Faison, Assistant Professor, Universityof Oklahoma, Ellen Hammond, Japanese Studies Librarian, University of Iowa, Michiko Ito,
Japanese Studies Librarian, University of Kansas, Naomi Kotake, Japan Bibliographer/Cataloger,
Hoover Institution, Stanford University, Toshie Mar-r-a,Japanese Librarian, UCLA, Katsuko
Murahashi, Keidanren, Mitsuo Naka, Yushodo, Haruko Nakamura, Japanese Cataloger/SubjectLibrarian, Washington University, Eizaburo Okuizumi, Japanese Librarian, University ofChicago, Kazuko Sakaguchi, Director, Japan Documentation Center on Contemporary Japan,
Harvard University, Sayuri Shimizu, Assistant Professor, Michigan State University, Hisami
Springer, Japanese Cataloging Librarian, University of Hawaii, Michael Twomey, Professor,
University of Michigan - Dearborn, David Wittner, Assistant Professor, Utica College, Kuniko Y.
McVey, Librarian for the Japanese Collection, Harvard-Yenching Library.
Others who expressed an interest but could not attend:
Tomoko Goto, Japanese Cataloger, University of British Columbia, Yasuko Makino, Japaneseand Korean Bibliographer, Princeton University, Mark Metzler, Assistant Professor, Oakland
University, Keiko Okuhara, Japanese Catalog Librarian, University of Pittsburgh, Meng-fen Su,Librarian, East Asian Library, University of Texas at Austin, Izumi K. Tytler, Bodleian JapaneseLibrarian, Oxford University, Keiko Yokota-Carter, Japanese Studies Librarian, University ofWashington, Kate Zhou, Associate Professor, Political Economy, University of Hawaii(Maureen Donovan, Ohio State University, recorder)

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