The project

The Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures would like to ask for your contribution for the collaboration with JAHF on an online Japanese arts related resources database that we have been developing in collaboration with the Tokyo National Research Institute for Cultural Properties (Tobunken) over the last 8 years.

Following the establishment of a collaborative agreement between the Sainsbury Institute and Tobunken, the Sainsbury Institute has been collecting and cataloguing information on Japanese art related publications, exhibitions and film festivals that have taken place outside of Japan since 2013.

Through the collaboration, we would like to ask the JAHF members to provide us with your list of publications (not restricted just to books) published in non-Japanese languages (languages other than English accepted) to add to the Tobunken Research Collections database.

We accept them in any format. 

In addition to the above, this time, we are particularly looking for information on Japanese art related exhibitions that were and/or have been affected by Covid-19. Could you please also let us have information if your publications were and/or have been affected by Covid-19. All information provided will be added to the Tobunken Research Collections database for future reference.

Many thanks to those who have already sent us your list of publications and exhibitions. A total number of 406 records were provided for the past year. Those published after 2013 have been available online. Those published prior to 2013 require more time to be entered into the system but will be available online in due course.

We are gradually adding DOI links mainly for articles in periodicals where available to the database so that you can access them without making another search.

Tobunken also just added the kanji variants search function on the English page, which enables us to search new and old kanji simultaneously.

We hope that this database will develop into an indispensable tool for research on Japanese art in and outside of Japan. For more information on the database and our role in this project, and to search the Tobunken Research Collections, please follow the link below.

https://www.sainsbury-institute.org/project/tobunken-sisjac-research-collection-database

To learn more about how to use the Tobunken database, please see the guide attached.

Please note that our database is not an English translation of the information collected by Tobunken but it complements the existing databases created by them. Please also note that the publications and exhibitions in non-Japanese languages that predate December 2012 are not included in this database as a rule for the moment.

Please contact us at m.hayashi@sainsbury-institute.org.