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Subject Guide for Japanese Studies
- Reference Tools
- Find Articles
- Find Books
- Romanization Guide
- Citing
Using the following resources to answer straightforward questions.
CU = Resources marked with this symbol are available on campus and to students, staff, and faculty from an off-campus location. Use of these resources is subject to copyright laws and license limitations.
Character Dictionaries
| Dai Kan-Wa jiten 大漢和辭典 | PL681 .C5 M6 1955 | Asian Ref |
| Daikangorin 大漢語林 | PL677.5 .K356 1992 | Asian Ref |
| Daijiten大字典 | PL667.5 .D35 1963 | Asian Ref |
| Kodansha shin daijiten 講談社新大字典 | PL677.5 .K63 1993 | Asian Ref |
| Nankun jiten 難訓辞典 | PL677.5 .N35 1956 | Asian Ref |
| Japanese character dictionary: with compound lookup via any kanji 漢英熟語リバ－ス字典 | PL677.5 .J36 1989 | Asian Ref |
| NTC's new Japanese-English character dictionary | PL677.5 .N83 1993 | Asian Ref |
Language Dictionaries
| Nihongo daijiten 日本語大辞典 | AG35.2 .N49 1989 | Asian Ref |
| Nihon kokugo daijiten 日本国語大辞典 | PL675 .N46 | Asian Ref |
| Gyakubiki kojien 逆引き広辞苑 | PL675 .S5 1991 | Asian Ref |
| Kokugo jiten 国語辞典 | PL675 .K5955 1955 | Asian Ref |
Bilingual Dictionaries
| Kenkyusha's new Japanese-English dictionary | PL679 .K377 2003 | Asian Ref |
| Basic Japanese-English dictionary | PL679 .B37 2004 | Asian Ref |
Name Dictionaries
| Japanese names : a comprehensive index by characters and readings | PL683 .O5 | Asian Ref |
| Japanese, Chinese, and Korean surnames and how to read them: 125,947 Japanese, 594 Chinese, and 259 Korean surnames written with Kanji as they appear in Japanese texts | PL683 .H33 1998 | Asian Ref |
| Jinmei yomikata jiten 人名よみかた辞典 | CS3000 .J52 1994 | Asian Ref |
Biographical Dictionaries
| Dai jinmei jiten 大人名事典 | CT203 .J3 D3 | Asian Ref |
Gendai hyōronka jinmei jiten 現代評論家人名事典 |
CT1832 .N35 2002 | Asian Ref |
| Gendai bukkosha jiten 1994-1996 現代物故者事典 1994-1996 | A1087 .J3 G63 1994 | Asian Ref |
| Gendai bukkosha jiten 1997-1999 現代物故者事典 1997-1999 | CT1836 .G383 2000 | Asian Ref |
| Kokusho jinmei jiten 国書人名辞典 | Z3301 .K799 1993 | Norlin Ref |
| A dictionary of Japanese artists: painting, sculpture, ceramics, prints, lacquer | N7358 .R6 | Art Ref |
| Biographical dictionary of Japanese history | DS834 .B56 | Norlin Atacks |
| Nihon josei jinmei jiten 日本女性人名辞典 | CT3730 .N493 1998 | Asian Ref |
| Iwanami Seiyō jinmei jiten 岩波西洋人名辞典 | CT203 .J3 I93 1981 | Asian Ref |
| Biographical dictionary of Japanese literature | PL723 .B5 | Norlin Stacks |
| Namae kara hiku jinmei jiten 名前から引く人名辞典 | CT1832 .N35 2002 | Asian Ref |
| Go, betsumei jiten: kindai--gendai 号, 別名辞典: 近代--現代 | Z1087.J3 G63 1994 | Asian Ref |
Dictionaries of Place Names
| Zenkoku chimei yomigana jiten 全国地名読みがな辞典 | DS805 .Z462 1995 | Asian Ref |
| Nihon chimei daijiten | G103 .N5 1967 | Asian Ref |
| Zoho dai Nihon chimei jisho 增補大日本地名辭書 | DS805 .Y6 1992 | Asian Ref |
Maps & Atlases
| Heibonsha-ban Nihon chizu 平凡社版日本地図 | G2355 .H45 1972 | Asian Ref |
| Japan atlas : a bilingual guide 日本日英併記アトラス | G2355 .U6 2006 | Asian Ref |
Contains early maps of Japan and the World. Represented in this online collection are a selection of maps and books from the collection. The maps were selected by Yuki Ishimatsu, Head of Japanese Collections at the East Asian Library at U.C. Berkeley, and scanned and put online by David Rumsey and Cartography Associates. Most noteworthy in the collection are a range of Japanese city maps dating back 300 years.
Contains thirteen historical maps of Tokyo, Japan, from 1680 to 1910, ten historical maps of Osaka, Japan, from 1657 to 1913, and six historical maps of Kyoto, Japan, from 1709 to 1889.
Date Conversion tools
| Japanese chronological tables: from 601 to 1872 A.D. | CE61 .J3 T5 1952 | Asian Ref |
| Nihon reki seireki gappi taishohyo 日本暦西暦月日対照表 | CE61 .J3 N64 1987 | Asian Ref |
Chronological Lists
| Nihon rekishi daijiten Vol 21 日本歴史大辞典 Vol 21 | DS833 .N5 1956 | Asian Ref |
| Dai Nihon nenpyo 大日本年表 | DS844 .T7 1942 | Asian Ref |
| Kindai Nihon sogo nenpyo 近代日本総合年表 | DS881.9 .K484 1968 | Asian Ref |
Dare de mo yomeru furigana tsuki Nihon kodaishi nenpyo 誰でも読めるふりがな付き日本古代史年表 |
DS851 .D37 2006 | Asian Ref |
| Dare de mo yomeru furigana tsuki Nihon chuseishi nenpyo 誰でも読めるふりがな付き日本中世史年表 | DS857 .D37 2007 | Asian Ref |
| Dare de mo yomeru furigana tsuki Nihon kinseishi nenpyo 誰でも読めるふりがな付き日本近世史年表 | DS871 .D37 2007 | Asian Ref |
| Nihon bungaku dainenpyo 日本文学大年表 | PL719.5 .N54 1995 | Asian Ref |
| Nihon bunka sogo nenpyo 日本文化総合年表 | DS821 .N67264 | Asian Ref |
CU = Resources marked with this symbol are available on campus and to students, staff, and faculty from an off-campus location. Use of these resources is subject to copyright laws and license limitations.
If you know what journal contains the article you are looking for, you can search for the journal in Chinook. Chinook will link you to the database providing full text, if the journal is available online,
If you know what article you are looking for and have the exact citation, Article Finder will take you to the full text if it is available.
The University of Colorado at Boulder Libraries provide access to more than 56,500 E-Journals. Use the E-Journal Finder website to search for e-journals by title or ISSN, or browse e-journals by title or subject.
Use the Find Articles & More website to search for a particular database by title, browse an alphabetical listing of databases by title, or find databases by subject.
- Find it at CU
In some article databases, you will see a "Find it at CU" link. Find it at CU will link you from citations to the full text of the desired item in another article database. For more information about Find it at CU, please see the Find it at CU FAQ. Note that not all databases can be set up to work with Find it at CU.
- Asia-studies CU
Asia-Studies Full-Text provides online access to publications from Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, Asian Development Bank, and other regional research institutes. This database covers Asia, Australia/New Zealand, the Americas Pacific Rim countries, and Pacific islands and includes statistics, research, analysis, and forecasts on business, government, economic, social issues as well as culture, language and history.
Collection of major religious and theology journals selected by religion scholars in the United States. Full text journals representing all major religious faiths, denominations and language groups are included.
BAS contains 640,000 records on all subjects (especially in the humanities and the social sciences) pertaining to East, Southeast, and South Asia published worldwide from 1971 to the present. Users can browse by country-subject, or by journal title.The BAS is updated regularly, with batch posting of thousands of new entries in each upload.
Humanities International Index provides cover-to-cover indexing and abstracting for over 2,000 titles and contains more than 2 million records in the humanities. Provides citations and abstracts for articles, essays and reviews, as well as original creative works including poems, fiction, photographs, paintings and illustrations.
The major index published by the Modern Language Association. Index to articles in literature, languages, linguistics, drama/theatre, and folklore from several thousand journals and series published worldwide. Also covers relevant monographs, working papers, proceedings, and bibliographies. Includes the MLA Directory of Periodicals.
- JSTOR CU
Provides image and full-text online access to back issues of selected scholarly journals in history, economics, political science, demography, mathematics and other fields of the humanities and social sciences. Consult the online tables of contents for holdings, as coverage varies for each title.
Periodicals Archive Online (PAO) is an archive of hundreds of digitized journals published in the arts, humanities and social sciences. It provides researchers with access to more than 200 years of scholarship, spread across a wide variety of subject areas.
- Project Muse CU
Full-text articles from over 300 high quality humanities, arts, and social sciences journals from 60 scholarly publishers.
A database that provides information about regularly and irregularly published journals, magazines, newspapers, and full-text electronic resources from more than 200 countries. In addition to order information and price, entries include brief descriptions, circulation data, whether or not a title is peer-reviewed, indexing and abstracting services that cover the title, reviews, and other information. The database also includes information about obtaining rights and permissions for many titles.
CU = Resources marked with this symbol are available on campus and to students, staff, and faculty from an off-campus location. Use of these resources is subject to copyright laws and license limitations.
Chinook is the catalog for materials owned by the CU Libraries. You can do a title search or an author search for a specific book, or a keyword search if you are looking for books on a particular topic.
If you search Chinook and find that the CU Libraries do not have the item you are looking for (or if the item you are looking for is checked out), you can search Prospector, which is a combined library catalog of 23 libraries in Colorado and Wyoming. CU students, staff and faculty can request materials through Prospector, and the items will generally be delivered to Norlin within a few business days.
WorldCat is a global catalog of library collections. It is the best place to search for books that are not in Chinook or Prospector. Then you may order those books thourgh Interlibrary Loan (ILL)
A bibliography of the Japanese empire : being a classified list of all books, essays and maps in European languages relating to Dai Nihon <Great Japan> published in Europe, America and in the East from 1859-93 A. D. |
Z3301 .W47 | PASCAL |
| Bibliography of the Japanese Empire 1906-1926 : being a classified list of the literature issued in European languages since the publication of Fr. von Wenckstern̓s "Bibliography of the Japanese Empire", up to the year 1926 | Z3301 .W471 | Norlin Ref |
| Bulletin of Far Eastern bibliography | Z3001 .B8 | PASCAL |
| An Introductory bibliography for Japanese studies | Z3306 .I57 | PASCAL |
| Cumulative bibliography of Asian studies, 1941-1965 | Z3001 .C94 | Norlin Ref |
| Cumulative bibliography of Asian studies, 1941-1965: author bibliography | Z3001 .C93 | Norlin Ref |
| Cumulative bibliography of Asian studies, 1966-1970 : subject bibliography | Z3001 .C94 1972 | Norlin Ref |
| Cumulative bibliography of Asian studies, 1966-1970 : author bibliography | Z3001 .C93 1973 | Norlin Ref |
Sponsored by the University of Virginia Library Electronic Text Center and the University of Pittsburgh East Asian Library, this site provide full texts of classical Japanese literature in Japanese characters. Where possible, the Japanese texts will be accompanied by English translations.
| Doctoral dissertations on Japan and on Korea, 1969-1979: an annotated bibliography of studies in western languages | Z3306 .S54 Suppl | Norlin Stacks |
Includes citations for North American dissertations ranging from 1861 to those accepted last semester. Dissertations published from 1980 forward include 350-word abstracts; master's theses from 1988 forward include 150-word abstracts. Provides abstracts of dissertations and some master's theses from the United States, Canada, Great Britain and, to a lesser and more selective extent, other countries
Provided by the National Institute of japanese literture. Contains bibliographic records of research thesis on Japanese literature
A Doctoral Dissertation bibliographic database provided by the National Institute of Informatics.
Bibliography of translations from the Japanese into Western languages from the 16th century to 1912 |
Z3308 .T7 I5 | PASCAL offsite |
| Japanese literature in foreign languages 1945-1995 | Z3308 .L5 J353 1997 | Norlin Stacks |
| Japanese literature in European languages : a bibliography | Z3308 .T7 N5 1961 | PASCAL offsite |
A list of books translated in the world, i.e. an international bibliography of translations.Contains cumulative bibliographical information on books translated and published in about one hundred of the UNESCO Member States since 1979 and totals more than 1.800,000 entries in all disciplines: literature, social and human sciences, natural and exact sciences, art, history and so forth. It is planned to update the work every four months. The references registered before 1979 can be found in the printed editions of the Index Translationum.
Contains bibliographic records of Japanese literary works translated into other languages, mostly after World War II. Provided by the Japan Foundation.
This bibliography covers texts written in Japan before the year 1600. The focus is on literary prose and poetry, but the bibliography also attempts to cover writings of importance for the study of Japanese religion, history, or culture generally. It began as a database of translations into English and other Western languages, but now includes entries for works not yet translated as well as some information about electronic texts and scholarly studies.
Adapted from the ALA-LC Romanization Table for Japanese
The purpose of this guide is to inform library users about the basic rules of Japanese Romanization used in North America library system. The following rules are essential to searching Japanese script materials in not only library catalogs but also many databases such as WorldCat. For more detailed information, please refer to the ALA-LC Romanization Tables.
- Romanization
The Romanization system called the Modified Hepburn is most commonly used for most Japanese-English dictionaries, other foreign-language publications, and in the Library of Congress cataloging system. The following examples show how the Modified Hepburn system is used in converting Japanese scripts to English.
- If there are more than one reading, the reading appears most frequently in dictionaries is used. A current modern reading is preferred to an obsolete one, except where the usage of standard authorities has established a particular reading for a particular name or book title.
日本 Nihon 大日本帝国 Dai Nippon Teikoku
- Long vowels and diacritics おう、おお、うう、ええ(ou, oo, uu, ee / ō, ō, ū, ē,)
Double vowels are not used but instead a vowel and a long mark over it, called macron, are used (ō, ū, ē). When you search the catalog, however, you can ignore the macrons and simply type single vowels in most electronic databases.
動詞 doshi (not dōshi) 九州 Kyushu (not Kyūshū) エース esu (not ēsu) Exceptions: when う comes after a vowel as a verb ending, type both u.
通う kayou (not kayo) 思う omou (not omo)
- For the syllabic nasal, n always precedes b, m, and p
新聞 shinbun 憲法 kenpo
- Word Division
In general, divide words into Tango 単語 units. A Sino-Japanese compound is counted as one Tango.
| 六朝時代 Rikucho jidai | 経済的 keizaiteki |
| 新幹線 shinkansen | 都道府県 todofuken |
| 我々 wareware | 支配する shihaisuru |
| 魅力ある miryokuaru | 日本文学研究会 Nihon bungaku kenkyukai |
- Write author’s last name followed by a space and then first name.
| 大江健三郎 Oe Kenzaburo | 村上春樹 Murakami Haruki |
| 菅原孝標女 Sugawara no Takasue no Musume |
- Write verbs separately from adverbs or inflected adjectives and verbs
| どう考える do kangaeru | 帰ってくる kaette kuru |
- Write compound adverbs and conjunctions as single words
| 特に tokuni | 直ぐに suguni |
- Write particles separately from other words and from eachother
| 幸福への道 kofuku e no michi | 絵は誰にでも描ける e wa dare ni de mo kakeru |
Suffixes and prefixes are written separately.
| 新古典大辞典 shin koten daijiten | 反戦争運動 han senso undo |
Proper names are written separately from modifiers or words modified by them.
| 鎌倉時代 Kamakura jidai | 日本史 Nihon shi |
| 明治天皇 Meiji tenno | 源氏物語抄 Genji monogatari sho |
- Write generic terms separately if they form Sino-Japanese compounds
| 小川町史 Ogawa choshi | 小笠原村長 Ogasawara soncho |
- Write koku as part of the name of a country
| 日本国 Nihonkoku | 満州国 Manshukoku |
- Write words consisting of or containing abbreviated proper names as singl words
| 欧米人 Obeijin | 記紀歌謡 Kiki kayo |
Numbers are divided as follows: numbers under 100, 100, 1,000, 10,000, and 100,000, etc. are written as single words.
| 千八百九十三 sen happyaku kyujusan |
- Write the ordinal prefix dai, numerators,, and other suffixes as part of the numbers they precede or follow, if spelled out. write them separate from the words they modify
| 第三勢力 daisan seiryoku | 第二次世界大戦回顧録 Dainiji Sekai Taisen kaikoroku |
CU = Resources marked with this symbol are available on campus and to students, staff, and faculty from an off-campus location. Use of these resources is subject to copyright laws and license limitations.
- RefWorks CU
A personal online database and bibliography creator that allows users to create a personal database online, import references automatically from multiple databases, organize references, and quickly format bibliographies and manuscripts. You will need to create a login and password.
Zotero is a powerful, easy-to-use research tool that helps you gather, organize, and analyze sources and then share the results of your research.
This is the Libraries' How to Cite a Source page. It collected very useful citing information, including citation tools, compact guides with example citations, style manuals (hardcopy & online sources) and search engines.
