Reference Tools
- Japan narejji Lib (ジャパンナレッジ Lib) = JapanKnowledge Lib This link opens in a new windowConsists 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 Tōyō bunko series and other visual and sound databases
- Nihon rekishi chimei taikei (日本歴史地名大系) = Japanese Historical Place Names This link opens in a new windowOnline database version of the 50 volumes of Japanese historical gazetteer, published by Heibonsha. Includes 200,000 headings with detailed explanation of the place name. Continously updated.
- Kokushi daijiten (国史大辞典) = Encyclopedia of Japanese History This link opens in a new windowA digitized version of the print edition of Kokushi daijiten, one of the largest encyclopedias of Japanese history. Including approx. 54,000 entries, it encompasses every aspect of Japan's history and includes entries in related fields such as archaeology, folklore, religion, art, Japanese language, Japanese literature and geography.
Index Databases
- Zasshi kiji sakuin shusei detabesu This link opens in a new windowIndex database for Japanese magazines and scholarly journals published from the Meiji era to the present. Pre-1945 records include publications in former colonial areas of Japan. (Restricted to 32 simultaneous users (shared with Japanese Studies consortium)).
- CiNii ResearchProvided by the National Institute of Informatics, CiNii Research is a simple interface that allows cross-search books, journal articles, and research data from external collaborating institutions and institutional repositories. Though CiNii Research is an index database, it provides a link to full body/text, if available.
- CiNii ResearchThis enables to cross search not only books and articles but also research data from external collaborating institutions and institutional repositories. To see the list of databases incorporated in CiNii Research, see here.
Subject Guide
Newspapers, Magazines
- Yomidasu Rekishikan (ヨミダス歴史館) by Yomiuri ShinbunOnline database of 11 million articles covering every issue of The Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper since its first issue in 1874. The database has four parts: the Meiji, Taisho and Showa Eras section contains high-quality scans of the articles as they appeared in the original print editions during these periods. The Heisei Era section presents articles in a convenient text view, and for articles since December 2008 there is a clipping view of the original article. The Daily Yomiuri section catalogues articles which have appeared in our English publication.
- Kikuzo (聞蔵) by Asahi ShinbunDistributed by Asahi Shinbun, a distinguished newspaper company in Japan, KIKUZO II database provides all articles published by the company since 1984, including Asahi Shinbun and its regional editions, weekly magazines AREA (May 1988-) and Shukan Asahi (April 2000-). More than 1,000 news articles are added to this database on a daily basis. It also contains searchable image database of actually published newspapers between 1945 and 1984, and as of Jan. 2009, the database contains approx. 8 million articles.