Japanese Studies

• Find materials in Western Languages and Japanese;
• Search Japanese databases; romanization rules;
• Find grey literature and Japanese government documents.

Finding Materials in Western Languages

Duke libraries provide various tips on searching for books, articles, images, and other materials.

Finding Materials in the Japanese Language

Japanese has a built in adjacency function; characters placed together without a space will be searched as a compound phrase (e.g. 戦争責任). Words separated by a space can be combined by "AND", or used as alternate search terms when いずれかを含む is selected (e.g. 内閣　政権　国会　政治).

Search tips for finding books and journals in Duke's online catalog. 

These are useful guides for searching specific Japanese databases:

• MagazinePlus Guide  http://library.duke.edu/research/help/databases/guides/magazineplus.html
• NACSIS WebCat Guide (a PDF by Sharon Domier) http://library.duke.edu/research/subject/guides/files/japan/nacsis.pdf
• NDL Web-OPAC Guide (a PDF by Sharon Domier) http://www.library.umass.edu/subject/easian/askeasl/NDLSearching.pdf

Romanization of Japanese

There are two primary systems used for romanizing Japanese: Hepburn and Kunrei. Libraries in the United States and Canada use Hepburn, while Kunrei is the official Japanese system.

• Some Notes on Rōmazi  (Marshall Unger)  http://www.cityfujisawa.ne.jp/%7Eroomazi/Eigo/unger.html
  details the history and differences between Hepburn and Kunrei.
• Japanese Romanization Tablehttp://www.library.ucla.edu/libraries/eastasian/jpntable.htm
  provides Hepburn romanization for Japanese; the explanations at the bottom of the page are written in Japanese.
• A Guide for Researchers (Sharon Domier) http://www.library.umass.edu/subject/easian/askeasl/JpnILLquick.pdf
  This PDF guide details what the standard elements to include in an interlibrary loan request and explains the standard format for romanization/transliteration, including a brief guide to word division.

Finding Grey Literature

"Grey literature" is difficult-to-obtain unpublished literature collected from both government and private sources.  These include policy studies and reports, white papers and annual reports, draft legislation, think-tank reports, public opinion polls, conference proceedings.

• "Accessing Japanese Government Documents" http://www.fas.harvard.edu/%7Encc/workbook/pdf/accessinggovernmentdocuments.pdf
  A PDF by Tokiko Yamamoto Bazzell, University of Hawaii at Manoa
• "Using Grey Literature" http://www.fas.harvard.edu/%7Encc/workbook/pdf/greyliterature.pdf
  A PDF by Kazuko Sakaguchi, Documentation Center on Contemporary Japan, Harvard University
• The Japan Documentation Center http://lcweb.loc.gov/rr/asian/jdc.html
  JDC was established to collect current Japanese information on Japan's public policy. The database covers grey literature published from 1992 to 2000 only.