Research Guides: Japanese Studies Resource: References & General Resources

Search Catalogs

What is this searching? The OSU Library Catalog searches for print, electronic and other formats in the OSU Libraries collections. More Search Options >>

What is this searching? The OhioLINK catalog allows searching and requesting of scholarly materials located in the 90+ college and university member libraries around Ohio, plus the State Library of Ohio. More Search Options >>

What is this searching? WorldCat@OSU searches across 7 key databases for books, articles, and more. More Search Options >>

What is this searching? The SearchOhio Catalog allows searching and requesting of popular books, DVDs, CDs and other materials from 20+ public library systems throughout the state of Ohio. More Search Options >>

Current EAS Journals in Print

Current Periodical Journals in Thompson Library1st floor Current Periodicals area
Current Periodical E A S Journals in Thompson Library 1st floor Current Periodicals area.

Encyclopedias & General Resources

JACAR (Japan Center for Asian Historical Records)
National Archives of Japan. Site includes exhibits and searchable archives.

Japan Knowledge : Encyclopedias, Dictionaries and Databases [Full Text] This link opens in a new window
Consists of fully searchable and browsable databases including English-Japanese and Japanese-English dictionaries, Encyclopedia Nipponica and Encyclopedia of Japan, articles published in a weekly magazine Ekonomisuto, collection of Toyo bunko series and other visual and sound databases.

Japanese Studies Commons
Open access resources on Japanese studies, including art / visual resources, articles, and e-books.
JapanGov (in English)
Provides collective information from the publicity materials of ministries and agencies. It also provides basic information about Japan.
JGuide (Stanford)
Guide to Japan information resources from Stanford University
Monash Nihongo ftp Archive
A repository of files and software related to Japan, its people and particularly the Japanese language.
NCC Guide
North American Coordinating Council on Japanese Library Resources (NCC).
NDL Digital Collections
The database provides digital publications (books, periodicals, articles, etc.) NDL took out and archived from the websites of Japanese ministries and agencies. Major publications such as White Papers are accessible via this website (English version of the website is available)
Portal to Asian Internet Resources
Research Navi
Research Navi is a platform for providing information to the general public. It introduces reference materials, websites, databases, information on related organizations, etc. in accordance with specific subjects or material groups.
Web Archiving Project (WARP）
Archives the whole websites of public organizations in Japan since 2002. Note: major publications such as White Papers and official bulletins of prefectures are archived in the NDL Digital Collections instead.

Finding English Articles about Japan

Academic Search Complete [Selected Articles in Full Text] This link opens in a new window
Academic Search Complete is comprehensive scholarly, multi-disciplinary full-text database, with more than 5,300 full-text periodicals, including 4,400 peer-reviewed journals. In addition to full text, this database offers indexing and abstracts for more than 9,300 journals and a total of 10,900 publications including monographs, reports, conference proceedings, etc.

Bibliography of Asian Studies
Western-language articles and book chapters on all parts of Asia published since 1971.

Factiva [Selected Articles in Full Text] This link opens in a new window
Factiva provides access to global new content covering nearly 8,000 sources, including Dow Jones and Reuters Newswires and The Wall Street Journal. Coverage includes multilingual content and the option to limit keywords searches to particular regions, publications, or with reference to a particular industry. One can also access company profiles that show all the news associated with a particular company. Limit of five simultaneous users.

Google Scholar
Google Scholar provides a simple way to broadly search for scholarly literature. From one place, you can search across many disciplines and sources: articles, theses, books, abstracts and court opinions, from academic publishers, professional societies, online repositories, universities and other web sites. Google Scholar helps you find relevant work across the world of scholarly research.

ProQuest Dissertations & Theses [Selected Articles in Full Text] This link opens in a new window
Contains citations for dissertations and theses done at U.S., Canadian and some foreign institutions including some OSU Master's nursing theses.
JSTOR [Selected Articles in Full Text] This link opens in a new window
JSTOR offers multidisciplinary and discipline-specific collections in the humanities, sciences and social sciences. The moving wall represents the time period between the last issue available in JSTOR and the most recently published issue of a journal. It is specified by publishers in their license agreements with JSTOR, and generally ranges from 3 and 5 years. In calculating the moving wall, the current, incomplete year is not counted.
Project Muse ebook and ejournal collections This link opens in a new window
Project MUSE is a leading provider of digital humanities and social sciences content since 1995, its electronic journal collections have supported a wide array of research needs at academic, public, special, and school libraries worldwide. MUSE books and journals, from leading university presses and scholarly societies, are fully integrated for search and discovery.
Web of Science (All Databases search) This link opens in a new window
Web of Science (formerly Web of Knowledge) is a cross-searchable interface for numerous Thompson Reuters databases including: Web of Science Core Collection, BIOSIS Citation Index, BIOSIS Previews, Derwent Innovations Index, and Journal Citation Reports.

Indexes to Japanese Language Articles

CiNII Articles
CiNii(Scholarly and Academic Information Navigator, pronounced like "sigh-knee") is a database service which can be searched for academic information of articles, books & Jjournals.
IRDB - 学術機関リポジトリポータル
Japanese Institutional Repositories Online
国文学論文目録データベース Kokubungaku Ronbun Mokuroku Db (NIJL)
Database of research thesis in Japanese literature from National Institute of Japanese Literature.
NDL Search
National Diet Library's search system for books, articles, theses, news, and digitized materials within its holdings as well as throughout Japan, aggregating access to many databases and web sites.

Nichigai Web Service - admin This link opens in a new window
MAGAZINEPLUS: Index to articles in Japanese general interest and scholarly magazines/journals and other academic publications; BOOKPLUS: index of Japanese books published since 1925; and other databases.

NIhongo Kenkyu DB
「日本語研究・日本語教育文献データベース」 Index to articles on linguistics, Japanese language and language pedagogy. Comprises data from 『国語年鑑』and『日本語教育年鑑』.
Nihongogaku ronsetsu shiryō
日本語学論說資料 + previous title 国語学論說資料. These series reprint articles about Japanese language from various publications. There are indexes to each volume and CD-ROM cumulative indexes (see the library cataog). Info: https://library.osu.edu/wiki/index.php?title=Nihongogaku_ronsetsu_shiry%C5%8D

Tips on Finding Bibliographic Resources

1. Romanization Tips:

Hint: Stay consistent in one system of romanization! (However – Search in multiple ways!! )
OSU Libraries follow the Library of Congress. However, many systems have been and continue to be used Hepburn or other romanization standards.

2. OSU Libraries’ Subject Guides

OSUL Subject Guides - Home

3. Search in library catalogs

Use the search boxes on the right

4. Research databases – finding articles:

5. Web searching

Google Scholar This link opens in a new window
Google Scholar indexes items Google considers scholarly, including articles, theses, books, preprints, abstracts, conference proceedings, and technical reports. The OSU Libraries subscribes to the electronic version of many of these materials and may own the print copy. See Make Google Scholar Work For You to set the Google Scholar Preferences to ensure you find materials available free to you from the OSU Libraries and OhioLINK.

6. Personal Learning Network

How to cultivate a personal learning network : Tips from Howard Rheingold (By Chuck Frey)

Japanese Calendrical Systems

Two number systems for years are commonly used in Japan:

Gregorian Calendar - the western calendar year system commonly used in US. e.g. 2015
Nengō 年号 - calendar year system based on the reigns of emperors.e.g. Heisei 27 or 平成二十七年

Japanese year converter

Japanese Romanization Standards

Most North American academic libraries follow the Library of Congress' Japanese romanization rules. Many Japanese libraries use either Modified Hepburn or Kunreishiki romanization. Please see the following links for more information on various romanization standards.

Library of Congress Romanization

Searching Japanese Materials in Library Catalogs (video)

Asian Studies

Toyogaku Bunken Ruimoku Db
東洋学文献類目検索. Index of books and articles about Asian Studies (excluding Japan) in various languages.

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Japanese Studies Resource