Cultural and Educational Factors Influencing US and Japanese Attitudes Toward Current and Future International Security Issues
Cultural and Educational Factors Influencing US and Japanese Attitudes Toward Current and Future International Security Issues
The North American Coordinating Council on Japanese Library Resources (NCC)
北米日本研究資料調整協議会
Established in 1991
The NCC works to expand and improve access to library resources and information about Japan, through collaboration with institutions and organizations in North America, Japan, and elsewhere. NCC coordinates projects to cooperatively develop Japanese collections and articulate the information needs of librarians, scholars, and others.
NCC works closely with librarians, faculty, and funding agencies to strengthen Japanese language collections and to promote access to information in all forms and formats.
NCC Japan Recent News
Japanese Studies Spotlight: Kōgyo: The Art of Noh
The NCC is collaborating with institutions and scholars to release a monthly series on their blog entitled Japanese Studies Spotlight. These features showcase exciting online collections available to researchers and students in Japanese Studies, introducing the archive or project, describing their contents, and demonstrating how they can be usefully engaged in research or in the classroom. If you are interested in submitting something to the series, please contact Paula R. Curtis, NCC’s Digital Media Manager, at digitalmediamanager@nccjapan.org.
Hiroyuki N. Good, Japanese Studies Librarian, University of Pittsburgh
The University of Pittsburgh Library System (ULS), which holds the largest collection of Tsukioka Kōgyo 月岡耕漁(1869-1927) color woodblock prints outside of Japan, has digitized four complete sets that depict the noh theatre. This online collection comprises the largest digital representation of Kōgyo’s work freely available online. The set contains Nōgaku zue 能樂圖繪 (Pictures of Noh), Nōgaku hyakuban 能楽百番 (Prints of One Hundred Noh Plays), Nōga taikan 能画大鑑 (A Great Collection of Prints of Noh Plays), and Kyōgen gojūban 狂言五十番 (Fifty Kyōgen Plays) and is available via the website: Kōgyo: The Art of Noh.
As the preeminent graphic artist of the noh and kyōgen theatres, Kōgyo created approximately 700 Japanese woodblock prints; 60 paintings; 100 illustrations for Japan’s first graphic magazine, Fūzoku gahō 風俗画報; and many postcard pictures of noh and kyōgen plays from the early 1890s until his premature death in 1927. Kōgyo also produced paintings and prints of flowers, birds, and even wartime scenes, but he is best known and remembered for his theatre paintings and prints.
Excerpt from NCC Japan News
NCC Japan Recent News
Japanese Studies Spotlight: The Japanese Maps Collection of the John Rylands Library
Build an elegantly modern, responsive website that’s creative, accessible and beautifully presented. A well-designed website can change your conversion and a profit for good.
Dr. Sonia Favi, Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Individual Fellow, John Rylands Research Institute, The University of Manchester
The Japanese Collection in the University of Manchester Library was first assembled in the 1860s and 1870s by the 25th Earl of Crawford from the collections of prominent 19th century Japanologists such as Pierre Léopold van Alstein (1792-1862), Frederick Victor Dickins (1838-1915), and Philipp Franz von Siebold (1796-1866). A few of the items can be traced back to Isaac Titsingh (1744–1812), who lived in Japan in the 18th century and is considered by many to be the founder of modern Japanese Studies. Our collection includes roughly 230 titles: 22 manuscripts and more than 200 printed works, mostly Japanese titles dating from the Edo period (1603-1868), with some works from the late 19th century and some titles in Dutch and English.
The collection was purchased by Enriqueta Rylands, founder of the John Rylands Library (now part of the University of Manchester Library), in 1901. Professor Peter F. Kornicki was the first to produce a detailed catalogue for it – published in 1993 in the Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester (vol. 75, no. 2, pp. 209-300) and now available online in the Library Digital Collections.
Manchester’s collection is heterogeneous, but one of its most remarkable features, which gives it its distinct character, is the Japanese map collection: single and multiple sheet maps, charts and atlases, which – combined with a limited quantity of other material (encyclopaedias, guidebooks, prints, surveys) classifiable as chishi 地誌 (topography) – account for more than one fourth of the whole collection.
A proper cartographic culture in the context of a growingly mapped world first took root in Japan in the Edo period. The ruling Tokugawa family and other local Japanese authorities ordered periodic land surveys in order to facilitate territorial control, which resulted in the production of administrative maps. At the same time, a growing publishing industry generated a wealth of commercial maps, some based on the official models and others created specifically for distribution to the public. The market was wide. In the 17th century, the Tokugawa family established tight restrictions on movement, both within the country and across borders. While some of these initial restrictions were progressively eased, maps and other topographical materials were increasingly sought by consumers of all social standing as means to virtually explore the country (and the surrounding world). They didn’t exclusively serve practical purposes and weren’t necessarily inspired by notions of “objective” or “scientific” representation. Many of them were at least partially pictorial in nature. They stimulated a new, widespread geographical consciousness in Japan.
Excerpt from NCC Japan News
