Research Guide for Professor Helen Hardacre's Japanese History 115: Religion and Society in Japan

As early as the late nineteenth-century, some Western-language newspapers began publishing in Japan for the foreign community. Harvard also subscribes to some major newspapers, such as the New York Times, which may have some coverage of Japan during this period. The following are links to some of these resources and to information on how to find more.

Guide to Newspapers and Newspaper Indexes: information about how to find newspapers at Harvard and general reference sources for newspapers. Coverage is stronger for American and English-language newspapers, but some resources for foreign newspapers and helpful tips for how to find newspapers in HOLLIS.

Widener Collection of Newspapers on Microfilm: provides a search function to discover which newspapers are available from a particular country or city. These are primarily Western-language newspapers. For Japan, only the Japan Weekly Mail (FILM NB 24) has coverage back to the nineteenth century (1886-1915), but there are holdings for several other papers from the early twentieth century.

New York Times (1851-2001): The New York Times is only one of the newspapers available through ProQuest Historical Newspapers. You also have the option of searching across early editions of the Wall Street Journal, Chicago Tribune, Washington Post, and a number of other papers.

Factiva.com: General news database oriented especially towards financial news. Factiva includes many newspapers published in Asia. Although many of these are Western-language publications, the database is increasingly including East Asian-language newspapers. For example, both Mainichi 毎日新聞 and 読売新聞 are available. Coverage for specific newspapers can be found by clicking on the "i" information symbol next to the titles.

To see a list of Japanese publications in Factiva.com, try the following:

1. Click on Source.
2. From the Select Source Category drop-down menu, choose Publications - By Region (you may view by language by choosing Publications - By Language).
3. Click on the + icon next to Asia.
4. Click on the + icon next to Eastern Asian Countries.
5. Click on the + icon next to Japan.

World News Connection (June 1994 - present): provides online access to full text English translations of current non-U.S. media sources, including Japan. The material is obtained from non-U.S. open-source political speeches, television programs, radio broadcasts, newspaper articles, periodicals, and books. It focuses primarily on military, political, environmental, scientific, technical, and socioeconomic issues and events. Coverage for earlier years is available in microform for FBIS (1941-) and JPRS (1957-) in the Government Documents / Microforms in Lamont. Coverage for earlier years, along with relevant indexes, are available (mostly in microform) for FBIS (1941-) and JPRS (1957-) in Government Documents/Microforms in Lamont. Using the indexes can be challenging, so you may wish to set up an appointment with reference staff (617-495-2106).

LexisNexis Academic: LexisNexis Academic provides searching and text of many Western-language publications from East Asia.

To see a list of Japanese publications in LexisNexis Academic, try the following:

1. Choose World News from the Step One: Select a news category drop-down menu.
2. Choose Asia/Pacific News Sources the Step Two: select a news source drop-down menu.
3. Click on Source List to see browse titles from that area.
4. Click on About This Title to see information about how often holdings are updated and what is included in the subscription.

Japan Times  Available online after 1956.
Harvard-Yenching Library: Microfilm FW 877-1379
Holdings: 1897-1918
Published in Tokyo, this is the first English-language newspaper in Japan to be put out by Japanese publishers.