PROBLEMS IN CATALOGING JAPANESE MATERIALS USING AACR2*

Reiko Yoshimura Freer Gallery of Art/Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Library

How most appropriately to catalog and classify non-western publications in North

American libraries has been at issue for many years. However, because of the ex­
pansion of publishing in the non-western world and the demand for materials to
support international studies, the number of non-western publications acquired by
North American academic libraries has been growing rapidly in recent years. As a
result, questions about the level of detail and the precision of that detail in cata­
loging and classifying such materials has become more pressing. To be sure, cata­
loging of non-western publications has been greatly benefitted by the emergence of
the online shared cataloging systems which can handle some non-western vernacular
scripts and thus provide better and more precise means of bibliographic access.
However, a number of questions persist in how best to perform descriptive
cataloging of non-western materials using rules that are based on experience in cat­
aloging western publications. This situation is complicated by the fact that descrip­
tive cataloging problems vary with the diversity of publishing practices in each coun­
try. Therefore, in order to make progress towards solving some of the problems,
while applying more broadly applicable cataloging rules, it is clear that careful
1
studies of the characteristics of publications in non-western countries is necessary.
What follows is a review of problems in descriptive cataloging of Japanese publica­
tions.

The purpose of this paper, then, is to discuss, by analyzing several examples from
Japanese monographs, some of the problems which a cataloger faces. Specifically,
in North American cataloging practice using the Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules,
second edition (AACR2), the title page is designated as the most important source
of information. In the case of Japanese publications, however, the title page often
lacks sufficient information for full descriptive cataloging. Frequently, some neces­
sary information is located in the colophon area because the colophon is the ac­
2
cepted chief source of information among Japanese publishers.

The use of the colophon in Japanese publications started in the seventeenth century.
Its first use was to indicate where the book could be purchased, since most of early
commercial book publishers were also the distributors of their own books. Later, as
specialized book distributors emerged, colophons became an important source to

'This paper was prepared when the author was a Japanese cataloger at the Ohio
State University Libraries, 1986-1989.
Mohammed M. Aman, "Introduction," in Cataloging and Classification of Non-
Western Material: Concerns, Issues and Practices, ed. by Mohammed M. Aman
(Phoenix, AZ: Oryx Press, 1980), p. 1.
2
Hideo Kaneko, "Cataloging and Classifying Japanese Language Library
Materials," in Cataloging and Classification of Non-Western Material, p. 132.

15
 3
identify copyright holders. Colophons were first required by a law of 1722. The
government's intention was to control the contents of the publication by clearly
identifying those responsible, not to protect copyright holders. The legal require­
4
ment to include a colophon was discontinued in 1949. However, the custom has
5
continued to the present. This differs from western book publishing where histori­
6
cally the function of the colophon was gradually replaced by the title page.
Indeed, the title page in Japanese publications has never taken on a role as impor­
tant as that of the colophon. In earlier publications, multivolume books often re­
ceived a title page only in the first volume. Matthi Forrer discusses the role of title
page in Japanese book publishing history:
"Thet [sic] the title-page never came to be regarded as an essen­
tial-though preliminary-part of any book can be induced from the
fact that, even in the nineteenth century, it is absent in quite a number
of books . . . This lack of anything like tradition in the title page may
explain the difficulties in cataloguing even the most recent Japanese
7
publications with the information given on the title-page only."

Japanese library specialists are aware of the importance of the colophon as a source
of information in Japanese publications for full descriptive cataloging. Shojiro
Maruyama discusses this point:
"The main bibliographic information about Japanese books is not
concentrated on the title page as in western books; sometimes the
8
greater part of information will be found in the colophon."
In Nihon Mokuroku Kisoku [Japanese cataloging rules], the colophon is listed along­
side the title page as a chief source of information for title proper and statement of
9
respojisibility for monograph descriptive cataloging. Similarly, Michio Kihara's
Shiryo Soshikiho [Organization of information] contains separate chapters for de­
scriptive cataloging of Japanese vernacular and western-language monographs. The
f
^Shuppan Jiten % )]&~#Jj$-, henshu Shuppan Jiten Henshu Iinkai (Tokyo:
Shuppan Nyususha, 1971), p. 50.

^Shuppan Jiten, p. 50.

5
Matthi Forrer, Eirakuya Toshiro, Publisher at Nagoya (Amsterdam: J. C. Gieben,
1985), pp. 39-40, 42-44; Shuppan Jiten, p. 50.
6
Forrer, p. 42; F. J. M. Wijnekus, Elsevier's Dictionary of the Printing and Allied
Industries (Amsterdam: Elsevier Publishing Co., 1967), p. 72; Geoffrey Ashall
Glaister, Glaister's Glossary of the Book, 2nd ed., completely rev. (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1979), p. 103.
Torrer, p. 39-40.
8
Shojiro Maruyama, "Descriptive Cataloguing and Cataloguing Rules in Japan,"
International Cataloguing 16 (July-Sept. 1986), p. 29.
9
Nihon Mokuroku Kisoku Nihon Toshokan Kyokai Mokuroku
Iinkai hen, 1987-nenban (Tokyo: Nihon Toshokan Kyokai, 1987), p. 57.

16
former chapter lists the colophon as a chief source together with the title page,
10
spine, and cover, while the latter includes only the title page as a chief source.
11
Examples 1 and 2 contain a title page comparison between western and Japanese
monographs. The amount of information contained on the Japanese title page
varies since some Japanese publishers have been adopting the western publishing
style. However, the title page of Example 2 is typical, containing (a) name of the
author, (b) title of the book, (c) series title, and (d) name of the publisher. This is
normally the maximum amount of information supplied on the title pages of modern
Japanese monographs. This comparison shows that while Example 1 (western) con­
tains almost all of the information necessary for descriptive cataloging, Example 2
(Japanese) lacks two key elements: (e) date and (f) place of publication, both of
which are located in the colophon. It is very rare for date and place of publication
to be found on title pages of Japanese monographs.

In addition to the standard elements listed above, colophons of Japanese mono­

graphs almost always contain names of representatives of both (g) the publisher and
(h) the printer with their full addresses, and (i) copyright information. Colophons of
many modern Japanese monographs also supply such information on authors as Q)
birth and death dates, brief bibliographies, and academic background as well as (k)
Japanese phonetic reading of their names which is a quite useful reference in de­
12
termining the romanized form of the name headings.
Examples 3 to 12 are of title pages and colophons from a number of modern
Japanese monographs. The first group (Examples 3 to 6) illustrates cases in which
the colophon contains more information than the title page. This does not have an
important effect on cataloging practice using AACR2, since the cataloger can simply
use bracketed information, required by the rules, from the colophon to supply data.
For example, the information could be supplied in the notes area without brackets.
However, choices of cataloging style are obviously affected.
The second group (Examples 7 to 12) contains cases where the information in the
colophon differs from that presented on the title page. In this situation, there often
are problems in deciding which information should be used. Sometimes information
can be verified in the work itself while, in other cases, no information is available
anywhere. In the latter case, a cataloger is required by AACR2 to use the informa­
tion from the title page. If, however, knowing more about the characteristics of such
publications, the cataloger believes the colophon information to be more correct,
AACR2 still requires this information to be verified.

Group 1: More information in the colophon than on the title page

Examples 3 and 4 represent the type of title page which lacks a statement of respon­
sibility if more than one author is involved or its author or editor is a corporate
body, although the westernization of Japanese publishing practices has been making
this practice less frequent. Example 3 is an extreme case in which only the title
10
Michio Kihara et al., Shiryo Soshikiho l^^ftHMji, dai 2-han (Tokyo: Daiichi
Hoki, 1988), pp. 110,182. * *

"Examples begin on page 22.

12
Kaneko, p. 132.

17
 roper appears on the title page. In this particular example, the book is about the
istory of an organization the name of which is included in the title {Nikkeiren San-
junenshi [Thirty-year history of Nikkeiren]); authorship by that institution may be
implied in the title and is certainly spelled out in the colophon. In such a case, one
might say that the title page exists only for decorative purposes.
Example 5 illustrates a special case in which the title page indicates a distributor,
Showa Tosho Shuppan, rather than the actual publisher. In the colophon the pub­
lisher of this book is identified as Sagamihara-shi Kyodo Konwakai, which organiza­
tion does not have a commercial publishing function. The distributor was perhaps
functioning enough as a publisher to stand alone in the place on the title page.
However, a cataloger must use Sagamihara-shi Kyodo Konwakai as a publisher be­
cause it is so identified in the colophon.
Example 6 is an another example of the title page lacking information except for a
title proper. What makes this case different from Example 3 is that the information
provided on the title page is about the original work from which the content of this
book was selected (in this case, photographs). Full information about the actual
book (i.e., editor, publisher) which might be expected to appear on the title page is
given only in the colophon.
Group 2: Title page information different from the colophon
The second group of examples are cases in which information from the title page
and colophon conflict.

In example 7 an editor on the title page, Hitotokikai Yushi, is listed as a publishing

body in the colophon and an editing credit is given to a different corporate body,
"Hito to toki to" Henshubu [Editor of "Hito to toki to"]. The editor statement on the
title page literally means "Volunteers" from Hitotokikai. This book consists of arti­
cles which first appeared in a newspaper column called "Hitotoki". It seems that
Hitotokikai is a group of people who contributed the articles to the column and
"Hito to Toki to" Henshubu selected and edited these articles into a monograph.
Therefore, Hitotokikai or Hitotokikai Yushi should have been an "author," not an
"editor," on the title page. In this case both Hitotokikai and "Hito to Toki to" Hen­
shubu share the responsibility, the former as an author and the latter as an editor.

The title page of Example 8 lists three individuals in the statement of responsibility:
Supervisor (Kanshu): Kabira Choshin; Illustrator (Sashie): Yanagi KOkan; Author
{Genbun shippitsu [originally written by]): Sakuda Shigeru. The designation of su­
pervisory responsibility is not unusual among Japanese publications and even
though the statement often occupies the first position on the title page, it is, in most
cases, no more than an honorific figure. In this example, presuming that the super­
visor, Kabira, is listed as the first credited person both on the title page and in the
colophon, the publisher's intention must be to give more honor to the supervisor
than to the others, leaving ambiguous the function of Sakuda, being an author on
the title page and an editor in the colophon. Under AACR2 the main entry for this
book would be the author, Sakuda, who is listed in the third position on the title
page, for he is identified there as the author {genbun shippitsu) of this book. In
western publishing one rarely encounters the concept of "supervision" as seen in
Japanese practice; therefore, the function of "supervisors" is not identified in
AACR2.

18
Examples 9 to 12 are of conflicting edition and edition-like statements on title pages
and colophons.
In Example 9, the title page reads Kaiteiban [revised edition] while the colophon
reads Scdteiban [second revised edition]. According to the edition history in the
colophon, the book was first published in 1967 and revised in 1972; the second re­
vised edition came out in 1977. Therefore, the correct edition statement of this
1977 publication should be Scdteiban, not Kaiteiban. One can suspect, in this case,
that the publisher did not correct the title page edition statement when the second
revised edition was issued.

In Example 10 the title page shows Kaitei shinpan [revised new edition] at the head
of the title while the colophon imprint area says Shohan [first edition], in addition to
Kaitei shinpan repeated at the head of the title as on the title page. Fortunately, the
situation is explained in the work itself-it was first published as a series of journal
articles. Afterwards, the author revised them, added more contents, and published
them as a monograph. It was later published as a monograph by a different pub­
lisher in the bunkoban format [pocket size edition], the format of this example. Al­
though it cannot be positively proven, it seems likely that the "KaiteF [revised] was
applied when the author revised the work for the first time as a monograph, and that
"Shinpan" [new edition] was added when it was reformatted as a pocket size edition.
Because AACR2 defines "edition (Books . . . ) " as: "All copies produced from essen­
tially the same type image (whether by direct contact or by photographic or other
13
methods) and issued by the same entity," the edition statement, "first edition," in
the colophon is correct, even though a previously published related work exists.

Surprisingly, this situation is not unusual in cataloging Japanese publications. Many

titles are ornamented by such "at head of title" phrases as Zoho [enlarged], Shinpan
[new edition], or Kaitei [revised], while the colophon indicates Shohan [first edition].
However, many of those, as in example 10, are actually new publications which are
substantially enlarged or newly formatted from the existing related work; some of
them are even combinations of more than one work previously published separately.
They can hardly be defined as simply "revised editions" in the current western
concept of edition. It seems that in many cases, this kind of "edition-like statement"
on the title page is used for the purpose of impressing the audience that the work is
better than the previously published one, not to indicate the revision history of the
book which is often stated Therefore, one may say that the
"edition-like statement" is almost a part oi the title proper or a "head of title" phrase
instead of the formal edition statement. This often creates a related problem in
determining a title proper, in that, if the phrase is truly an edition statement, it
should not be included in the title proper; but if this is not so, the author or the
publisher might have intended to include the phrase as a part of the title proper.
Therefore, in such situations, to produce the best access for the use of the catalog,
both titles, with and without the phrase (one as a title proper and the other as an
added title entry) need to be traced. In current western cataloging practices, it must

^Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules, ed. by Michael Gorman and Paul W.

Winkler, 2nd ed., 1988 rev. (Chicago: American Library Association, cl988), p.
617.

19
be noted, this kind of "edition-like statement" would never be considered as a part of
14
the title proper.
A cataloger dealing with this kind of situation needs to examine the items carefully
to determine what the publisher meant by the edition statement on the title page
and/or the colophon, by reading the preface or postscripts where one can often
learn about the revision history of the book. Sometimes the cataloger must consult
reference tools such as the National Union Catalog or bibliographic data bases to lo­
cate a bibliographic record for a related work in order to determine the relationship.
However, in some cases no information is available, as in Example 11. The title
page in this example, as in the examples discussed above, reads Zoho [enlarged],
while the colophon says Shohan [first edition]; however, one can find no proof about
which statement is correct. Learning from other examples, it might be a correct
choice to accept the colophon edition statement even though the current rules do
not allow it. Does a cataloger have the freedom to make this assumption?
Identifying edition statements is one of the most important issues in cataloging prac­
tice. A cataloger must deal carefully with this matter, especially is such situations as
discussed above. In the case of Japanese publications, more thorough studies on the
Japanese interpretation of editions and revisions is necessary.

In Example 12, the series statement on the title page and in the colophon is de­
scribed differently: the former in Japanese hiragana phonetics C -? -9 • Jt &) < \
and the latter in Chinese characters S_ ^ • Until a few years ago, this did
not matter since the romanized form or this statement was identical for either
vernacular form, Kotsu mamehon. However, since it is becoming more standard in
North America to employ vernacular characters in online shared cataloging records
for East Asian materials, this has become quite an important issue. The forms of
headings are determined by how they appear in the original scripts as well as the
romanized form. In this example, the choice should be made between the Japanese
phonetic form and the Chinese character form. Applying AACR2, one would
probably choose the form in phonetics on the title page. However, a cataloger
cannot be certain of how the publisher intended to describe this series. On the
cover the series statement appears in Chinese characters as it does in the colophon.
From the standpoint of the content, Chinese characters are more expressive than
the phonetics. However, it is noteworthy that many Japanese publishers often
determine whether to adopt Chinese characters or the phonetics largely based on
considerations of design.

In cataloging western publications, one never faces this kind of problem since it
deals with only one alphabet. However, for cataloging Japanese materials, it is very
important that the rules clarify which script should be chosen as an authorized ac­
cess point when the statement is recorded in more than one form on the item. This
issue definitely should be considered when the cataloging rules are revised.

14
Saito Masaei, ("Unwanted Duplicates," CEAL Bulletin, No. 72 (Oct. 1983), pp.
21-23) states that the titles starting with such "at head of title" phrase as edition
statement sometimes are listed in the publisher's catalog.

20
SUMMARY
Colophons of Japanese publications have been traditionally the most important
source of bibliographic information. While some Japanese publishers have been
adding more information to the title pages, this more conventional practice is still
commonly employed in a large number of Japanese publications. Those who are
cataloging Japanese materials quite often need to acquire information from the
colophon in addition to the title page in order to complete full descriptive cata­
loging. Sometimes the information on the title page and in the colophon conflicts,
in which case further investigation is necessary to determine which information de­
scribes the situation more correctly even though AACR2 requires the title page to
be the first choice. However, as we observed above, in some cases when the
information in those two places conflicts, the problems are related to the matter of
interpretation of such bibliographical issues as definition of authorship, editorship,
or description of certain name headings, which is much more than simply proving
which information is correct or incorrect. This is closely related to the characteristic
nature of Japanese publications and their difference from western publications.
When using cataloging rules formulated for western publications, often one finds
15
that the rules do not really fit in these situations.

During the past decade, cataloging East Asian materials has benefitted from the
tremendous advances in computer technology. Now bibliographic records of East
Asian materials are available online in their vernacular scripts, in addition to the
romanized form in academic libraries in North America. Moreover, one may say
that we are going towards more precision in terms of the bibliographic information
we provide in catalog records. This also means that cataloging rules need to be
more universally applicable, not only for "Anglo-American" materials but also for
non-western publications. For example, the cataloging rules need to be modified to
include more discussion about the use of other sources of information, such as the
colophon, and what information can be used as the basis of descriptive cataloging
when conflicts exist or when conclusive evidence is absent. To be able to formulate
such rules, a thorough study on the publishing practices and characteristics of non-
western publications would be essential.

15
Thomas H. Lee, "What's New in Technical Processing," CEAL Bulletin, No. 63
(Oct. 1980), p. 53.

21
 EXAMPLES Example 1

B o o k m a n ' s

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Title page
Colophon
Example 2
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22
 Example 3

Title page

Title Date of publication

Title

Colophon

Statement of responsibility (Editor)

Title

Title
Colophon

Edition statement
1985^12 JI 5 a

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Publisher
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Publisher

Statement of responsibility (Editor)

 Example 5

Colophon ft h o) m ft

1980*£9fl20B JR 1 «IJBt5

&fim— 1300R

Publisher
© Kanako Osada 1980 Printed in Japan •it h

Distributor

WIS 03—816—5291 (R) IfiJf 7-69532

1023—100016—3448

Title page

Title page
H3KiIxl,!.rt.te

OKINAWA THE LAST BATTLE

Title
Example 6
>+ mm IB m ^ *c m
( T h e Original Work)
United S t a t e A r m y in W o r l d W a r I I :
T h e W a r in t h e Pacific
OKINAWA: T H E LAST BATTLE
Colophon
by

Roye. Appletnan. James M. Burnt, Editor, Katuaki Shlmoji

Russell A . G u g e l e r , and John Stevens. Publisher, Tauneo Namihlra.
U n d e r t h e auspice* of the Printing office, Syukosha, Fukuoka.

H i i t o r l c a l Division
D e p a r t m e n t of the Army
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U.S. Government
1967^6 « 1 0 B rXJTISJEfT
Published In 1948 19663=8/1208 tflHRftfi
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D e p a r t m e n t of t h e A r m y .
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2 . o t y

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a — -( E. T ^ * 7 y , -e—J-x M . :
9 - / * * A. — A / , 'J * y XT7'Sx

24
 Publisher (Hitotokikai Yushi)

Editor ("Hito to Toki to" Henshubu)

Kfil55$£8El5B Sl3«S3gfr

T I ^ I I

T577 B^E7rF/.hR664-68
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m & fig tt

(371) 8 9 1 0 - 9 1 7 0
Colophon

Editor (Hitotokikai Yushi)

Example 8
mm Colophon

Supervisor (Kabira)
1972*fc4fllB«.f
Illustrator (Yanagi)
Jg flf 9 0 0 R
Editor (Sakuda)

III ¥ W *

Author (Sakuda)

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 Example 9

13 * 15 IJt *4 tt

ft
ELEMENTARY JAPANESE FOR FOREIGN STUDENTS

1967^5^20 0
1 9 7 2 ^ 1 fl208
*B X£ ft ft ftjgg (1st ed., 1967)
1977^12/115 0 » n us ft ft 25: fT IS (rev. ed. , 1972) Revised edition
1979^5 30 •
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19811pl0fl 1 B Wm£W2 JJ.jfert 55: IT US
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1 9 8 3 ^ 1 UI 1 B
mm»3 stftft
1984^ 6 f l 1 0 fftlOcM-i Mftft

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WASEDA UNIVERSITY
3KJKRS»r?&Effi^faa3i-6-i 9 1 6 0 Title page
«:S ( 0 3 ) 203 - < H 1 f/jU S3S6

£fl2.500FJ

Example 10

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Revised new edition
it — Colophon -
# IT UF H5

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Title page
>«ifllX« 5016

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26
 J0Mi M n
Example 11

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ttyir J

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