Dr. Lonny Carlile
University of Hawaii at Manoa

Profile
Dr. Lonny Carlile is Associate Professor of Asian Studies at the University of Hawaii at Manoa with a specialization in Japanese political economy. Recent publications include: "The 'Free Economy' and the Developmental State: the Changing Ideology and Politics of Japanese Organized Business, 1965-1980" in David Arase, ed., The Challenge of Change; "Crises and Responses: The Demographics of Japanese Overseas Travelers During Periods of Economic Downturn and Heightened Security Concerns" in Tourism Review International (forthcoming); Divisions of Labor: Globality, Ideology, and War in the Shaping of the Japanese Labor Movement (book); "The Japanese Labour Movement's Road to the Millennium" in David W. Edgington, ed., Japan at the Dawn of the New Millennium; and "Niche or Mass Market? The Regional Politico-Economic Context of Tourism and Tourism Development in Palau" in The Contemporary Pacific.

"The Impact of Changing Times and Changing Contexts on Shashi: A Comparison of the JTB's 50-Year and 70-Year Histories"

Abstract
Shashi, or company histories, are published periodically by Japanese corporations to commemorate landmark years in a company's history. Since landmark years are a recurring phenomenon- e.g., the 10th year anniversary of a company's founding, the 25th year, etc.- over their lifespan corporations will publish multiple shashi, with subsequent shashi retracing events and developments covered in earlier versions. Does it therefore matter which version a researcher uses in making use of this valuable historical source?
The proposed paper argues that although differences can often be subtle, the time of publication more often than not does have a significant impact on the treatment of historical events and it is important for historians using shashi to be aware of differences in the treatment of identical events in differing shashi editions. The author demonstrates this point through a concrete deconstruction of the treatments of identical time periods in two different editions of shashi published by the Japan Travel Bureau (JTB). It then traces how the differing historical contexts in which the two versions explains the differences noted.

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Dr. Sayuri Gutherie Shimizu
Michigan State University

Profile
Dr. Sayuri Gutherie Shimizu is an associate professor of American History at Michigan State University. Her research examines the history of U.S.-Asian relations as an aspect of modern global history. Her forthcoming article about the Japanese presence in the U. S. South in the post World War II period derives from this larger research agenda.

"Tracing the Expansion of Japanese Business Establishments in the U.S."

Abstract
I recently published an article entitled "From Southeast Asia to the U. S. Southeast: Japanese Business Meets the Sunbelt South," in a collection of essays (James C. Cobb and William Stueck (eds.), Globalization and the U. S. South, Georgia University Press). One of the themes I addressed in this article was the origins and growth of Japanese investment in the United States in the post-war period. In this study, I highlight the U. S. Southeast, a subnational unit historically understood as the "underdeveloped" region within the U. S. Among other things I tried to show how Japan's investment, particularly manufacturing investments (such as consumer electronics and, more notably, automobile production) has played a key role in the economic development of the U. S. Southeast ("Deep South") in the Sunbelt era in Southern history.

As an American historian, I found Japanese shashi's a great historical resource in carrying out this project. In one part of the article, I attempt to show a diachronic portrayal of the Japanese business presence in the U. S. South from the early 1950s when Japan's overseas investment resumed under strict government control up to the present day. One way I showed the growing number of Japanese business establishments was by identifying the numbers and dates of subsidiaries, branch offices and manufacturing plants set up by key Japanese corporations in the U. S. by consulting their Shashi. One of the consistent features of Shashi's appears to be an information section devoted to the opening of branches and factories (both domestic and overseas). It is possible to tease out information from the Statistical Abstracts such as Asahi Nenkan to identify the number of new investment ventures approved by the Finance Minister in a given year, but it is almost impossible to know where and when overseas offices were established in the United States by which company in a given year. Shashi offered me a handy and extremely efficient investigative tool for gleaning this information that would otherwise be too time-consuming even for the most dedicated of historians to chase after.

Another important use to which I put Shashi in conducting this body of research was its rich anecdotal value. In one section of my article, I examined incentive packages offered to potential foreign investors by Southern state governments during their massive recruitment of foreign direct investment in the 1970s and 1980s. Although the use of state public funds are supposed to be a matter of public records, ascertaining the exact magnitude of these incentive packages entails an extremely laborious process of filing Freedom of Information Act requests and plumbing other published public records. In many instances, I found the Shashi of the key Japanese corporations on the receiving end of these deals very upfront about the details of incentives offered by the local business suitors. Shashi also provided me with eye-opening anecdotes behind the negotiations between Japanese companies and U. S. state governments.

To my knowledge at least, no systematic use has been made by students of the Japanese business presence in the United States. I hope to "educate" American historians about the value of this under-utilized historical resource that provides a rare glimpse into how waves of globalization swept through the area of the United States that was once considered almost impervious to outside influences.

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Ms. Maureen Donovan
Ohio State University

Profile
Ms. Maureen Donovan is an Associate Professor/Japanese Studies Librarian at Ohio State University. She just returned from a yearlong research fellowship at the International Research Center for Japanese Studies. She is a driving force behind many innovative projects, including the North American Japanese Company Histories (Shashi) Interest Group and the Ohio State University Manga Collections. She was the first chair of the Shashi Group and is its current co-chair.

"Manga and Shashi: Information Intersections in Resources on Gross National Cool (GNC)"

Abstract
Manga is big business in Japan, so it should come as no surprise that company histories are useful research resources about the business of producing, publishing and marketing Japanese cartoons. It works the other way too: some shashi have been issued in manga format. Further, some cartoonists and editors of manga magazines have also issued shashi or shashi-like publications. This paper explores the intersections of these two major genres of Japanese publications to show that looking behind the scenes of what Douglas McGray has called "Japan's Gross National Cool" can be as fascinating as the cool products themselves.

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Ms. Izumi Koide
Shibusawa Memorial Museum Resource Center for the History of Entrepreneurship

Profile
Ms. Izumi Koide is Director for the Resource Center for the History of Entrepreneurship at the Shibusawa Memorial Museum. Before assuming her Director's position, she had an extensive and distinguished career at the International House of Japan Library. In her current position, she has undertaken many ambitious projects, which include a company history database, business history woodblock print database, entrepreneur profile database, exposition and trade fair database, Shibusawa-related information database, and a comprehensive business history database.

"Mining for Information Gold: How to get at it?"

Abstract
More than 13,000 shashi have been published in Japan since the late 19th century. There is a unified list that includes most of them; however, there is no complete database of shashi publications, which would help researchers benefit from the shashi's rich contents. The Shibusawa Museum's Resource Center for the History of Entrepreneurship has started a project to create a database that will eventually provide complete and easy access to all shashi publications. Details of the shashi database project and other relevant projects at the Shibusawa's Resource Center will be presented.

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Mr. Eizaburo Okuizumi
University of Chicago

Profile
Being the Japanese Studies Librarian at the University of Chicago for the past 20 years, Mr. Eizaburo Okuizumi has long been involved in research on censored periodicals published in Japan during the Allied Occupation. Mr. Okuizumi's research also traces the ancestry of Japanese immigrants and early Japanese sojourners in North America, using shashi and shashi related materials.

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Ms. Tokiko Y. Bazzell
University of Hawaii at Manoa

Profile
Ms. Tokiko Y. Bazzell is the Japan Specialist Librarian at the University of Hawaii at Manoa Library. She has been an active member of the North American Shashi Interest Group since it began. She was the chair in 2003 and is co-chair in 2004. She was successful in obtaining a grant from the North American Coordinating Council on Japanese Resources (NCC) Multivolume Sets Program to purchase 95 reels of Shashi microfilm for the UHM Library. The microfilms are available to North American institutions through ILL. She also manages the UHM Shashi Collection web site. Her article on Shashi, "Shashi: Treasure Trove of Information" is available online (pp.6-7.)

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