Report on the Second JACAR Seminar

Japan Center for Asian Historical Records (JACAR) held a second seminar on theme of “Searching for Russo-Japanese War related documents” on July 8, 2022, from 4-5pm. The seminar introduced the relatively new JACAR Glossary “Japan’s Army during the Meiji and Taisho Eras” which was released in June 2021. It also introduced JACAR’s comparatively new digital archive links to newspapers for research with Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. The subjects of the seminar were as follows.

1. JACAR and the organizations that provide archival materials
2. Introduction to the JACAR Glossary “Japan’s Army during the Meiji and Taisho Eras”
3. How to search the JACAR database more effectively
4. Information on Learning on Asian History and Topics from JACAR
5. Question and answer session

150 people registered for the seminar and 110 participated. We carried out a questionnaire after the seminar and 98% of respondents attended for the first time. Also, 36% of respondents had never used the JACAR database. A large percentage of the people in attendance were high school teachers, some were staff at archival institutions, and others were university and graduate students working on theses. With the introduction of a new high school history course in April 2022, interest appears to have increased for digital materials among educators.

JACAR’s basic keyword search is widely helpful, but in this seminar we also went over advanced search methods that use organizational and hierarchy layers. We also discussed how to use our search features to counter dictionary fluctuations in notation over time.

In a questionnaire, we received feedback that it was good to know how about changes in search terms over time, so the ones introduced at the seminar are listed below. Please take a look and note that we are conveying this without endorsing any historical language used.

•    Russo-Japanese War 日露戦争 　　‥‥‥‥ 日露戦役、明治三十七八年戦役

These Japanese synonyms were shared in the question and answer session.

•    First Sino-Japanese war 日清戦争　‥‥‥‥ 日清戦役、明治二十七八年戦役
•    World War I 第一次世界大戦  　　　‥‥‥‥ 欧州大戦、欧洲大戦
•    Second Sino-Japanese War 日中戦争 ‥‥‥ 支那事変
•    Pacific War 太平洋戦争 　　　　　　‥‥‥‥ 大東亜戦争

•    Hibiya incendiary incident 日比谷焼打ち事件‥‥‥‥
•     日比谷　国民大会、日比谷　騒擾 Hibiya, National Assembly, Hibiya riot
•    By leaving a blank space between Japanese words like “日比谷” and “国民大会”,you can perform an AND search for two keywords.

We received many questions during our seminar. Not all have been adequately answered. If you would like to find more details, please contact the following email address: jacar_enquire@archives.go.jp. Thank you very much everyone who joined our seminar.

A recording of the event was released at JACAR’s official YouTube channel :https://youtu.be/Xcp-kQ9FJxc. Please take a look if you were unable to attend or could use a review. The video is available only in Japanese.