The University of Virginia Japanese Text Initiative (JTI) is a project intended to provide a comprehensive online database of Japanese literary texts. Sponsored by the University of Virginia and the University of Pittsburgh East Asian Library, the online collection contains over 300 texts from Japan's pre-modern and modern periods (generally defined as before and after the Meiji Restoration of 1868). Pre-modern texts include the Man'yōshū , the Tale of Genji , the Kokin Wakashū , and the Hōjōki . Modern texts include works by Natsume Sōseki, Mori Ōgai, and Akutagawa Ryūnosuke.
The stated aim of the initiative is "In the short term... to put online most or all of the Twenty Classical Works in J. Thomas Rimer's A Reader's Guide to Japanese Literature, revised edition (New York: Kodansha, 1999)" . The aim is also to add pre-20th century literature and as much 20th century literature as copyright restrictions will allow.
The database is still a work in progress, and it is not completely comprehensive; generally, the later in time one goes, the fewer works are featured. There are relatively few Edo-period pieces, and some Meiji and Taishō period authors are either absent, or not all of their works are available. As of October 2014, the last update was in March 2004.
The database can be browsed either by author or by title, and includes a search function which, among other things, can be used to search for specific or phrases occurring in the works available.
Project Gutenberg (PG) is a volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, as well as to "encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks." It was founded in 1971 by American writer Michael S. Hart and is the oldest digital library. Most of the items in its collection are the full texts of books or individual stories in the public domain. All files can be accessed for free under an open format layout, available on almost any computer. As of 3 October 2015, Project Gutenberg had reached 50,000 items in its collection of free eBooks.
Aozora Bunko is a Japanese digital library. This online collection encompasses several thousands of works of Japanese-language fiction and non-fiction. These include out-of-copyright books or works that the authors wish to make freely available.
Early works of Japanese literature were heavily influenced by cultural contact with China and Chinese literature, and were often written in Classical Chinese. Indian literature also had an influence through the spread of Buddhism in Japan. In the Heian period, Japan's original kokufū culture developed and literature also established its own style. Following Japan's reopening of its ports to Western trading and diplomacy in the 19th century, Western literature has influenced the development of modern Japanese writers, while they have in turn been more recognized outside Japan, with two Nobel Prizes so far, as of 2020.
JSTOR is a digital library founded in 1995 in New York City. Originally containing digitized back issues of academic journals, it now encompasses books and other primary sources as well as current issues of journals in the humanities and social sciences. It provides full-text searches of almost 2,000 journals.
Masaoka Shiki, pen-name of Masaoka Noboru, was a Japanese poet, author, and literary critic in Meiji period Japan. Shiki is regarded as a major figure in the development of modern haiku poetry, credited with writing nearly 20,000 stanzas during his short life. He also wrote on reform of tanka poetry.
The National Diet Library (NDL) is the national library of Japan and among the largest libraries in the world. It was established in 1948 for the purpose of assisting members of the National Diet of Japan in researching matters of public policy. The library is similar in purpose and scope to the United States Library of Congress.
The Northeastern University Women Writers Project or WWP, founded in 1986 at Brown University, is a long-term research and publication project which focuses on making texts from early modern women writers in the English language available online. The Women Writers Project maintains "Women Writers Online" an electronic collection of rare or difficult to obtain works written or co-authored by women from the sixteenth century to the mid nineteenth century. In addition, the WWP is actively engaged in researching the complex issues involved in representing manuscripts and early printed texts in digital form and holds an occasional conference, Women in the Archives, as well as teaching workshops in text encoding and other practices central to digital humanities.
Korean literature is the body of literature produced by Koreans, mostly in the Korean language and sometimes in Classical Chinese. For much of Korea's 1,500 years of literary history, it was written in Hanja. It is commonly divided into classical and modern periods, although this distinction is sometimes unclear. Korea is home to the world's first metal and copper type, the world's earliest known printed document and the world's first featural script.
The International Research Center for Japanese Studies, or Nichibunken (日文研), is an inter-university research institute in Kyoto. Along with the National Institute of Japanese Literature, the National Museum of Japanese History, and the National Museum of Ethnology, it is one of the National Institutes for the Humanities. The center is devoted to research related to Japanese culture.
An electronic dictionary is a dictionary whose data exists in digital form and can be accessed through a number of different media. Electronic dictionaries can be found in several forms, including software installed on tablet or desktop computers, mobile apps, web applications, and as a built-in function of E-readers. They may be free or require payment.
The Historiographical Institute of the University of Tokyo is a research institution affiliated with the University of Tokyo that is devoted to the analysis, compilation, and publication of historical source materials concerning Japan. Since its foundation in 1869, the Institute has been a major center of Japanese historical research, and makes historical sources available through its library, publications, and databases.
Google Books is a service from Google Inc. that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical character recognition (OCR), and stored in its digital database. Books are provided either by publishers and authors through the Google Books Partner Program, or by Google's library partners through the Library Project. Additionally, Google has partnered with a number of magazine publishers to digitize their archives.
Frisian literature is works written in the Frisian languages, including that of West Frisian spoken in the province of Friesland in the Netherlands, from which most texts were produced or have survived. The first texts written in Frisian emerge around the 13th century.
Nihon Ōdai Ichiran, The Table of the Rulers of Japan, is a 17th-century chronicle of the serial reigns of Japanese emperors with brief notes about some of the noteworthy events or other happenings.
The Pāli Canon is the standard collection of scriptures in the Theravada Buddhist tradition, as preserved in the Pāli language. It is the most complete extant early Buddhist canon. It derives mainly from the Tamrashatiya school.
Japanese Historical Text Initiative (JHTI) is a searchable online database of Japanese historical documents and English translations. It is part of the Center for Japanese Studies at the University of California at Berkeley.
The historiography of Japan is the study of methods and hypotheses formulated in the study and literature of the history of Japan.
A miscellany is a collection of various pieces of writing by different authors. Meaning a mixture, medley, or assortment, a miscellany can include pieces on many subjects and in a variety of different forms. In contrast to anthologies, whose aim is to give a selective and canonical view of literature, miscellanies were produced for the entertainment of a contemporary audience and so instead emphasise collectiveness and popularity. Laura Mandell and Rita Raley state:
This last distinction is quite often visible in the basic categorical differences between anthologies on the one hand, and all other types of collections on the other, for it is in the one that we read poems of excellence, the "best of English poetry," and it is in the other that we read poems of interest. Out of the differences between a principle of selection and a principle of collection, then, comes a difference in aesthetic value, which is precisely what is at issue in the debates over the "proper" material for inclusion into the canon.
The Columbia Anthology of Modern Chinese Literature is a 1995 anthology of Chinese literature edited by Joseph S. M. Lau and Howard Goldblatt and published by Columbia University. Its intended use is to be a textbook.
Founded in 1945, with its first volume published in 1960, the Catalogus Translationum et Commentariorum is a scholarly journal documenting the work of international scholars interested in classical tradition during the Middle Ages and Renaissance.