About the Shibusawa Shashi Database

What Are Shashi?

Shashi (社史) translates directly as “company history” and refers to not only the history of a company but also publications describing that history. It is customary for Japanese companies to publish shashi to mark commemorative years such as the 30th, 50th, or 100th anniversaries of the company’s founding. Along with the company’s history, a shashi will often outline the company’s founding and management philosophies. Manufacturing companies may include ingredients and product manufacturing processes, while companies involved in commerce may include international as well as domestic trading histories. Some shashi look beyond the company in question to provide background on the general history of the industry or that of the local area dating back as far as prehistoric times.

Despite being a treasure trove of information on economic development and wisdom, shashi often have only limited distribution, being given to people related to the company instead of being sold publically. In addition, because many lack indexes, they can be difficult to use effectively. The Shibusawa Shashi Database (SSD) aims to solve these and others issues by facilitating access to the contents of shashi.

Shashi Included in the SSD

Of the some 15,000 shashi that have been published in Japan since the Meiji period, the SSD comprises about 1,600 shashi. For detailed information on companies related to Shibusawa Eiichi, please refer to the “Name Change Charts of Companies and Organizations Related to Shibusawa Eiichi” (渋沢栄一関連会社名・団体名変遷図).

Data Set

For each shashi in the database, data has been collected from the table of contents, index, chronology, and appendix. If each of the above is considered to be a single piece of data, the total data count is about 2,530,000. While the full text of shashi have not been included and thus volumes cannot be read online, links are provided to WorldCat, NDL ONLINE, CiNii Books, and other sites that give holdings information to assist users in tracking down copies in collections around the world.