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Japan has a developed postmodern society, and the country is world leader in postmodern global urban culture. But despite of growing globalization and internationalization, many traditional elements have still continuing to play a significant role as important resources of understanding local community culture, identity and solidarity. Matsuri, as a part of the cultural heritage of local communities, are among the most crucial resources of national and local culture. Local festivals solidify relationships between individuals and their community, making spirit of belonging stronger; they play the role of socio-cultural instruments and resources for constructing and re-constructing community. In postmodern environment they become important part of locality versus global forces, showing not only the continuity and connection with past, but also the local culture creativity and potential for transformation.

This presentation will report the current movement of the activities of Digital Humanities and “Digital Archive” in Japan. In addition, the "Integrated Studies of Cultural and Research Resources" project promoted by the National Museum of Japanese History, and the "Historical and Cultural Preservation Network" project promoted by the National Institutes for Humanities will be also introduced.

Interdisciplinary cooperation and collaboration is currently focused on in the academic fields related to diversity and mobility in education and research. Interdisciplinary collaboration creates potential learning resources. It also, possibly, entails difficulties that affect interactions across diverse disciplines. This paper presents a case of interdisciplinary seminar planning work between different disciplines of Japanese studies, premodern Japanese studies and Japanese language education. The case is the Kuzushiji seminar offered by the Nagoya University (NU), which is conducted at the University of Helsinki (UH) in autumn 2019.

The research traces the history of Shinto studies in Russia in 20th and 21st cc. to point out Shinto texts in Russian translation and scientific literature about Shinto written in Russian. These translated sources and academic literature contribute greatly to the integration of Shinto studies in broader context of religious studies in Russia.

This paper aims at introducing new services developed by the East Asia Department of Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin for its users and the wider Asian Studies community in Germany over the past years. Based, amongst others, on the Free Data Service provided by the National Diet Library we have been incorporating bibliographical data from various sources into our search space to offer users a broader view on available resources. Materials that previously had to be looked up using different catalogues can now be located through this enlarged one-stop-search. Freely available electronic resources can be accessed directly through linking and printed material so far not in the collection of the library can now be requested by users through a patron-driven acquisition model. The paper will present the various stages of developing these new services, the technical system behind it, as well as the difficulties encountered on the way. It is hoped, that it might inspire others to make greater use of the resources provided by our colleagues in Japan to the benefit of the users of our libraries.

The archives of the various state diplomatic institutions are crucial for conducting historical research related to international relations. As branches of acting state institutions, however, these archives tend to be organized and administrated by special rules, generally more restrictive than the average historical archive. This is especially true for materials related to the modern and contemporary periods.
The report presents the author’s experience in conducting such historical research in the foreign ministry archives of Japan, Bulgaria and the Russian Federation.

While LGTBQ studies has not traditionally been an area that Japanese studies collections outside Japan have paid attention to, it is increasingly becoming an area of interest. By rethinking resources for Japanese studies to include historical and rare Japanese language LGTBQ materials we can open up new avenues of research in the field. This paper will give an overview of a project at the University of Southern California to catalog and digitize Japanese language materials held at ONE Archives, the oldest existing lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender organization in the United States, and the largest repository of LGBTQ materials in the world. It will also highlight how collaboration between institutions that are traditional strongholds of resources for Japanese studies, such as the USC East Asian Library, with institutions that are not known for their Japanese studies resources, such as ONE Archives, can be a successful way to rethink resources.

In this presentation, I would like to introduce the collections of the French national library in modern and contemporary literature. I would also like to share my reflections about what can be the role of a national library in this specific field, and how to meet the needs of today’s researchers.