National Diet Library Newsletter
No. 182, April 2012
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Japan Specialist Workshop:
Access to the culture and the society
of contemporary Japan 2012
The National Diet Library (NDL) jointly hosted the Japan Specialist Workshop: Access to the culture and the society of contemporary Japan 2012 with the International House of Japan (IHJ) in Tokyo February 14-22. The program was made possible by the support of the Japan Foundation. Ten trainees joined from nine countries: Australia, Finland, France, Germany, the Republic of Korea, Latvia, Poland, Russia and the United States. The program was intended for researchers of Japanese studies as well as librarians in the field of humanities, and consisted of classroom lectures (Feb. 14-17), research visits to libraries, archives, and other academic institutions (Feb. 20-21), and a debriefing session on the research visits (Feb. 22).
Trainees gather around classical materials taken from the stacks of the NDL.
This workshop was intended as a part of 3-year span project: there was a similar workshop for specialists in the field of social science in FY2010, and there is to be a symposium to report on the post-training activities of the participants in FY2012.
The contents of the program were as follows:
| Date | Subject |
|---|---|
| February 14 | Orientation I Japanese films: genealogy and future perspective On Journal of Japanese Studies |
| February 15 | Orientation II Introductory guide to research: primary tools and practice Methodology and research tools of Japanese historiography Reception |
| February 16 | Introduction to modern Japanese political documents and old Japanese books in the NDL’s collection Methodology and research tools of Japanese literature <Optional> Guide to using the NDL |
| February 17 | Methodology and research tools of Japanese art Guide to humanities research: primary tools and practice |
| February 18-19 | Days off |
| February 20-21 | Research visits to libraries, archives, and other academic institutions |
| February 22 | Debriefing session on the research visits (open to public): presentation by each participant and Q&A Opinion exchange Get-together |
Overall reception of the workshop was favorable; trainees were almost unanimous in that the workshop did greatly help them improve information gathering capacity in the field of humanities, liked participatory style of class (fewer lectures, more practice, presentation and discussion compared to the last year) and pointed out that the workshop was a good opportunity to forge human networks and that by studying side by side, both researchers and librarians gained insights into different ends of handling information.
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