Hiromune Suzuki
Modern Japanese Political Documents Division,
Reference and Special Collections Department

This article is based on the article in Japanese of the same title
in NDL Monthly Bulletin No. 592 (July 2010).

Introduction
The National Diet Library (NDL) has a plan to start digitizing Japanese documentary records owned by the Library of Congress (LC)¹. This January I visited the Asian Division of the LC and during my stay I did preparatory research on the pre-war documents and books that were requisitioned by the GHQ while Japan was occupied after World War II.

Old Japanese records remain not only in Japan but also all around the world. Especially in the US, some documentary records can be found which we are unable to find in any libraries and museums in Japan including the NDL. There is a record that the LC made a request to the Japanese government through the Smithsonian Institution for international exchange of publications in 1875². Regarding the Japanese records owned by the LC, many catalogs and lists are available thanks to prior researches. In addition, researches on Japanese materials requisitioned and shipped to the US by the Washington Document Center after World War II are very helpful³.

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Japanese documents held in the Library of Congress
The Library of Congress is one of the largest libraries in the world. All the library staff, library users and tourists need to be security checked when entering the building. In addition, when leaving the library, they are required to show the contents of any bag they are carrying.

Most of the Japanese books, including the ones that were published outside Japan, are held in the Asian Division; maps and posters are dealt with by the specific divisions in charge⁴. The staff kindly prepared a space in the stack room for me. Their office space and the stack room of the Asian Division are located in different buildings. Since a specially authorized card is required to enter the stack (the NDL has the same system), it was necessary for me to be helped by one of the staff of the Asian Division to get to the stack through an underground passage every morning during my research.

The target of my research was the Japanese pre-war documentary records that are to be digitized. The records of pre-Edo period and recent ones were excluded from the research⁵. However, I thought it interesting when I found a lot of book seals of the Japanese Military Academy in the pre-Edo materials⁶, taking into account the process of how the materials came to be owned by the LC. Before the visit I had studied some collections such as books censored by the Home Ministry⁷, documents of the pre-war Japanese army and navy⁸, and Japanese pre-war magazines. In addition to these, I tried to catch an overview of other collections, such as records of the South Manchurian Railway Company and pre-war collections of translation.

Stacks of the Asian Division inside the John Adams Building

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What I researched in the stack was the organization of the bibliographical data, status and the volume of the materials. Although I had already checked in advance the bibliographical data of the materials to some extent via the lists provided by the LC website, it was very valuable for me to see the actual materials because I was able to understand broadly their special qualities such as how they are preserved and what kind of documents they contain.

As it was almost impossible for me to research all of the materials in detail during my short stay, I tried to check a part of them whether the NDL had collected them or not. The bibliographical data of most materials were available in the LC. I noticed that sometimes only one set of data was assigned for more than one item. Usually, each item has its own data such as title, author, and publisher. I even found a group of collections for which only one set of data was assigned as their catalog ("collection-leveled catalog"). For example, the title "Senzen senchu no hon'yaku tosho. Naimusho ken'etsu. Shukyo oyobi tetsugaku" includes bibliographical data for eleven books. While the search results showed the titles and the authors of each item by the Hepburn system of Romanizing Japanese, because such information was sometimes insufficient to specify the items, I often used prevailing databases such as the NDL-OPAC, "Webcat" by the National Institute of Informatics and "Nihon no Furuhon'ya" (Japanese only) to confirm the bibliographical data. I felt the big advantage of the Internet when using such Japanese databases even though I was in the US.

Shelves for Japanese documents

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Conclusion
In my research I put emphasis on whether the collections were worth digitizing in the first place, which collections were easy to start to digitize in the view of the enrichment of the bibliographical data, and whether the collections were strong enough for digitization. I thought most of the materials were in better condition than I had expected, considering their age. Some bear an identification such as "books censored by the Home Ministry," and others such as "Records of the South Manchurian Railway Company" are classified by theme. Because the content of their bibliographical data differs from one to another, I found it difficult to stick to one rule when dealing with them. It seemed to me that the "collection-leveled catalogs" were insufficient as bibliographical data for digitization.

Though some "books censored by the Home Ministry" items have already been returned to the NDL and some of them have been microfilmed, which are accessible at the NDL⁹, the red letters put on by the censors are more clearly visible on the originals. I am sure this digitization project would attract many researchers amid the recently increasing research into the censored pre-war materials¹⁰.

Acknowledgement
Lastly, I would like to express my appreciation to Mr. Eiichi Ito, Ms. Mari Nakahara and Ms. Kiyoyo Y. Pipher for their generous help with my research. It was very helpful for me to be able to communicate in Japanese in the US.

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¹ On July 6, 2010, the cooperative agreement for digitization was concluded between the LC and the NDL. Digitizing work is planned to start in FY 2010, targeting about ten thousand titles of "books censored by the Home Ministry," "documents of the pre-war Japanese army and navy" and "Japanese pre-war magazines."

² Tsuyoshi Saito, "Nihon ni okeru shuppanbutsu kokusai kokan jigyo no rekishi," Toshokan Kenkyu Shirizu (5), 1962.3, pp.165-198.

³ In considering the current status and future tasks, Atsuhiko Wada, "Ryutsu, shozo joho o toraeru bungaku kenkyu e: Bei Gikai Toshokan shozo no senryoki hisesshu bunken ni tsuite," Nihon bungaku 57(1), 2008.1, pp.56-67, was very helpful. On the WDC, I referred to Keiko Yoshimura, "Beikoku Gikai Toshokan Nihonka no WDC korekushon," Intelligence (10), 2008.8, pp.12-19. Atsuhiko Wada, Shomotsu no nichibei kankei: riterashishi ni mukete, (Shinyosha, 2007), gives details of the history of Japan-America book exchange. On Japanese materials in the LC, the following catalogs are particularly informative along with their explanations: Bei Gikai Toshokan shozo senryo sesshu kyu Riku-Kaigun shiryo somokuroku: 1992-nen 5-gatsu genzai, (Toyo Shorin, 1995), ed. Hiromi Tanaka; Senzen, sengo kenetsu shiryo oyobi bunsho: 1955-nen izen: Beikoku Gikai Toshokan shozo maikuroka shiryo chekku risuto 1-3, (Bunsei Shoin, 2009, containing forecited Yoshimura's thesis), ed. Keiko Yoshimura; Beikoku Gikai Toshokan shozo senzenki Ajia kankei Nihongo chikuji kankobutsu mokuroku, (Ajia Keizai Kenkyujo, 1995), ed. Tetsuo Imura. Materials introducing specific themes are: Eiichi Ito "Beikoku Gikai Toshokan shozo Minami Manshu Tetsudo Kabushiki Gaisha kankei shiryo no hokan to riyo ni tsuite," Nichi Bei Chu ni okeru Mantetsu kankei shiryo to no riyo to hozon o meguru shomondai: kokusai waku shoppu hokokusho, ed. Ajia Keizai Kenkyujo Toshokan, (Nihon Boeki Shinko Kiko Ajia Keizai Kenkyujo, 2009.3), (http://opac.ide.go.jp/asia_archive/documents/kanren_workshop/ kanren_workshop.pdf); Mie Hoshi "LC shozo Nihon senryoki hakko zasshi no seiri ni tazusawatte," Kokukritsu Kokkai Toshokan Geppo (380), 1992.11, pp.14-17

⁴ On maps, Kindai Nihon no chizu sakusei to Ajia Taiheiyo chiiki 'Gaihozu' eno apurochi, ed. Shigeru Kobayashi, (Osaka Daigaku Shuppan Kai, 2009),contains several informative theses. The Prints and Photographs Division holds the Yanker Poster Collection including post-war posters of Japanese political parties (searchable with the online catalog of the Prints and Photographs Division (http://www.loc.gov/pictures/)).

⁵ On pre-Edo materials, see Beikoku Gikai Toshokan zo Nihon kotenseki mokuroku, ed. Beikoku Gikai Toshokan zo Nihon kotenseki mokuroku Kanko kai, (Yagi Shoten, 2003).

⁶ Ibid., preface.

⁷ I had an opportunity to have an interview before visiting the US with Mr. Noritada Otaki (professor of Tokyo University of Agriculture), who is conducting related researches. He afterward presented "Beikoku Gikai Toshokan shozo no Nihon kenetsu korekushon no igi: kindai hakkin tosho no shozai o sagashite" at a regular meeting of the Japan Association of Library and Information History.

⁸ Searchable with the forecited Tanaka's catalog.

⁹ Searchable with the forecited Yoshimura's catalog. The NDL opens part of them as "Japanese government documents and censored publications: publications" in the Modern Japanese Political History Materials Room in the Tokyo Main Library.

¹⁰ e. g. Kunio Asaoka, Toru Koizumi, "Senzenki Naimusho ni okeru shuppan kenetsu: kinshi shobun no iroiro," Daigaku Toshokan Mondai Kenkyukai shi (32), 2009.8, pp.29-42.

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