Talk:Bibliography of Japanese history

copied

this was copied from Citizendium = http://en.citizendium.org/wiki?title=History_of_Japan/Bibliography&action=edit It is CC by SA 3.0 Rjensen (talk) 16:27, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

Ci Style

Could someone tell me how to solve the following ci advisories and if the style is correct.

"* "Srednuas Lenoroc (talk) 01:33, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

Fixed. {{cite journal | last = Totman | first = Conrad | title = Tokugawa Peasants: Win, Lose, or Draw? | journal = [[Monumenta Nipponica]] | volume = 41 | year = 1986 | issue = 4 | pages = 457–476 | jstor = 2384863}} Mkdw^talk 03:42, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

References

Thanks and suggest annotations; delete two items for each item added

Kudos, especially to Rjensen, for curating this this list and other history/ bibliography lists. The most recent series of edits to remove links to Questia is especially appreciated.

Still, I suggest we should think about what readers will find useful in lists like this. Scholars have access to specialized resources, so Wikipedia need not worry about them, as they will not worry about Wikipedia. Large university libraries have electronic resources, so this list is for general readers and students. I have taught Modern Japan courses, but could not refer students to this list because there is/ are:

• No indication of the criteria of selection. This is, of course, the downside of Wikipedia's basic principles, but....
• No selectivity.
• No annotations to indicate the nature, point of view, reader level etc.
• Many out of date items. General readers are unlikely to find monographs and surveys earlier than, say, 1990 to be the first choice. With exceptions, of course, for true "classics."
• No publication data. Not a major concern, but it is often useful to know if something was published by a private or scholarly press and in Tokyo, Berlin, Long Island, or Latvia.
• No links to Wikipedia articles on a title. Renewed kudos to Rjensen for finding online links, as these are most certainly useful, but online availability should not qualify a book that would not be listed otherwise. And of course, Internet Archive and GoogleBooks are often usable.

So I see no need to delete the list and start over, as nobody has the time or inclination, but for practical incrementalism I suggest

• Annotate! Maybe only a few words, but say something useful -- not "classic survey," but "emphasizes political history," "shows role of XXX".
• For each item added, remove two.
• More links to Wikipedia articles.

Of course, of course, this is not going to change the list much and certainly not quickly, but it could inch things in the right direction. Cheers in any case.ch (talk) 16:29, 6 November 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for the kind words and good suggestions. I enjoy doing bibliographies, and have been doing that for over 50 years (it helped that for years I had access to big research library-- today I'm in remote Montana and not many books are close by, and fewer journals). The target audience I have in mind is usually the undergraduate freshman or sophomore, or advance high school student, looking for a term paper topic. The priority is to have a range of different topics, as opposed to numerous items focused on the same issue. A priority is to have access online to all or a large part of the study, through sources like JSTOR, Amazon and the Internet archive. Questia was terrific in this regard and I'm sorry it's gone. That still leaves lots of articles in Google scholar, and it has a remarkable feature that I use a lot: how many times particular book or article is cited in the scholarly literature. The more cites the better. For books, the priority is a University press, or a well-established commercial press with a large academic clientele. (Self published/Vanity books have 2.5 strikes against them.) When there's a lot to choose from, recently published items from the last five or 10 years get a priority. When a suitable book is online, I turn first to the bibliography. The problem there is that scholars love to list dozens of items with no real evaluation of the sort that CWH and I would like to see. So finally I rely on the book reviews, especially in the major journals. H-Net often has reviews of scholarly articles that I find especially useful (they are free for everybody) and I link to them whenever possible. I do all this work because I enjoy learning about history, and the more varied the historical topics the better. Spending a few hours on a topic I knew little about is quite satisfying. Generally I avoid this month's current events – Wikipedia editors do pretty good job of that. Rjensen (talk) 18:14, 6 November 2021 (UTC)

Well put, once again. This list and Bibliography of Chinese history indeed reflect attentive care and scholarly chops, but bibliographers are like the proverbial one-armed paper-hanger in a high wind: we just can't keep up with all the new stuff. This is not the place to go into it, but I think the scholarly associations need to take some responsibility. Doing it right is more than one or even a small group of editors can handle.

In the meantime, I admire and salute your efforts but the Japan list still lacks items I as an Asianist but non-specialist in Japan find on my study shelves, those by Herbert Bix, Ronald Dore, Fukuzawa Yukichi, Andrew Gordon, Carol Gluck, Laura Hein, Mark Ravina, Amy Stanley, Stephan Tanaka, Ezra Vogel, Steven Vlastos, Louise Young. I don't know the answer, as I already spend too much time hanging paper elsewhere and you do, as well.ch (talk) 23:14, 6 November 2021 (UTC)

In light of recent edits, I don't know which is most appropriate, to extoll Rjensen as a bibliographical saint, a bibliographical guru, or a bibliographical Stakhanovite, so I will just say "many thanks."ch (talk) 17:12, 7 November 2021 (UTC)