[Special Feature: Exhibiting the History of the Juku] The Current State of Compiling University Histories

The first workplace I held at a university was the Kyoto University Centennial History Editorial Office. Twenty-eight years have passed since then, and while I now work at the Kyoto University Archives, I am also a member of the Kyoto University 125th Anniversary History Editorial Committee. In this way, my career has been inextricably linked to the compilation of university histories. Based on these experiences, I would like to record my thoughts regarding my involvement in the compilation of the "125-Year History of Kyoto University" in this article. Please note that the following are my personal opinions and do not represent the views of Kyoto University or the 125th Anniversary History Editorial Committee.

Kyoto University, founded in 1897, is preparing to implement commemorative projects for its 125th anniversary in 2022, one of which is the compilation of the "125-Year History of Kyoto University." In April 2017, the 125th Anniversary History Editorial Committee was established, along with the 125th Anniversary History Editorial Office to handle the actual editing work. Through discussions in the editorial committee, it was decided that the 125-year history would consist of a general history volume (one volume, print) and a source material volume (digital), and writing and editing are currently underway.

The first institutional history published by Kyoto University was the "History of Kyoto Imperial University" (1943), compiled as one of the commemorative projects for the 2,600th anniversary of the founding of the Japanese Empire. Although it is a massive volume of over 1,200 pages, there is no university-wide general history description other than the circumstances of its founding; the majority consists of the histories of individual departments and faculties.

The next to be published was the "70-Year History of Kyoto University" (1967), consisting of a "General Overview" serving as the general history and the histories of each department. It is unclear from the remaining records why the commemorative project was implemented at the somewhat awkward milestone of "70 years," but as a result, it was successfully published just before the outbreak of the university protests. The third was the "Centennial History of Kyoto University" (1997–2001), which included one volume of general history, three volumes of departmental history, three volumes of source materials, and a photo collection. Therefore, the current 125-year history will be the fourth university-wide institutional history.

Institutional histories have been actively compiled at Japanese universities. This trend began in earnest around the late 1950s, and the "Centennial History of Keio University" (1958–1969) can be said to be one of the histories that led the way. Following this trend, the compilation of university histories reached its peak in the 1980s and 90s. The "Centennial History of the University of Tokyo" (1984–1987) is a representative history of this period, but the fact that many private universities founded before the war reached their 100th anniversaries one after another was also a major factor. This peak continued until the 50th anniversary of the new-system national universities in 1999.

What I want to emphasize here is not simply that the number of universities compiling and publishing institutional histories increased. Characteristics include the fact that large-scale histories spanning multiple volumes and thousands of pages became common, the increase in highly empirical content using abundant primary sources from both inside and outside the university, and the diversification of publication formats such as photo collections and booklets. Compiling such large-scale and highly empirical histories requires expertise from the staff in charge. It was a natural progression for the editorial organizations established at each university to gradually strengthen their horizontal ties and exchange various types of information. The culmination of this was the establishment of the Japan Association for University Archives in 1996. Universities began to engage not only in compiling institutional histories but also in using collected materials for exhibitions and education on their own institutional history.

Entering the 2000s, large-scale institutional histories were compiled at Tohoku University, Ritsumeikan University, Takushoku University, and Kyushu University, but the pace of publication does not seem to be what it once was. However, I have heard that preparations for publication are underway at several universities, and various university histories will likely continue to be produced in the future.

Despite this history of university institutional histories, I feel that the surrounding situation has been changing in recent years. Here, I would like to summarize those changes into three points.

Relationship with Archives

As large-scale institutional histories were compiled one after another, the need for facilities to manage, utilize, and in some cases, open to the public the valuable materials collected for compilation began to be recognized. Many of the archives currently in Japanese universities originated from institutional history editorial organizations. The Keio University Fukuzawa Memorial Center for Modern Japanese Studies was originally the Office of Institutional History that compiled the "Centennial History of Keio University," and the Kyoto University Archives, to which I belong, was established in part due to the publication of the "Centennial History of Kyoto University."

However, that relationship has now been reversed; that is, universities that already have archives have begun to compile institutional histories. This means that whereas editorial organizations previously collected materials from scratch, they can now make full use of the materials accumulated by archives from both inside and outside the university, expanding the possibility of making the content of the institutional history more substantial (depending, of course, on the extent of the archive's material collection).

On the other hand, it is necessary to clarify how archives should be involved in the compilation of institutional histories. Since the work of receiving, organizing, and making materials public in an archive is different from the task of compiling history using those materials, my view is that archives should focus solely on providing materials.

The Full-Scale Adoption of Digital Media

The era when it was a given to publish in print is a thing of the past. The wave of digitalization is also reaching university institutional histories. University histories that allowed viewing of video and audio as supplements on CDs or DVDs have existed for some time. In recent years, however, histories using digital media in a full-scale manner have appeared. As far as I am aware, the "100-Year History of Ritsumeikan: Source Materials Volume 3," published in 2014, is a primary example. Of the total six volumes including the general history, this volume, which contained materials from the 1980s onward, was published on DVD. Furthermore, the "Centennial History of Kyushu University," completed in 2017, was published entirely online (except for the photo collection), and no print version was produced. My honest impression is that university institutional histories have finally come this far.

It goes without saying, but digital media has advantages. The fact that the absolute constraint of page count in print media has virtually disappeared, the ability to access it from anywhere with an electronic device without having to carry heavy books, the searchability, the ability to update, and from the production side, the fact that it is cheaper (probably) because paper and printing costs are unnecessary, can be counted as major benefits. On the other hand, it is also true that digital media is difficult to read (especially for generations like mine), it is hard to compare and contrast multiple sections, and because it can be updated, the point at which it is considered "complete" is ambiguous. We must consider what the appropriate medium is while weighing the advantages of both.

The Issue of the Writing Body

It is common for Japanese university institutional histories, especially the general history sections, to be written by the university's faculty. In some cases, one or a few people write it, and in others, dozens of people share the writing. However, I believe it will be difficult to maintain such a system in the future. One reason is that faculty members are becoming busier. It is hard to imagine that faculty members, who are occupied not only with their primary research and education but also with various duties inside and outside the university, would take an active interest in writing an institutional history that (in many cases) offers no benefit to themselves. The second reason is the frequent organizational restructuring of universities. As research and education organizations and administrative organizations are newly established, integrated, or abolished one after another, how many people are there who can write about past organizations? Due to fixed-term contracts and the mobilization of personnel, faculty members themselves are losing their sense of belonging to their organizations, for better or worse. Under such circumstances, I cannot help but be pessimistic about whether writing institutional histories is possible. In particular, I think it is becoming difficult to determine how much of the history of each department—in other words, the history of research and education at that university—can be recorded in the future.

What is the purpose of creating an institutional history? Of course, there is no single answer. There may be institutional histories that "cherry-pick" only the good parts of a university to encourage large donations from alumni. Even if that is a bit extreme, there are universities that hold a certain fixed image, much like a "founding myth." The "academic tradition of freedom" at Kyoto University may be one of them. There is certainly a tendency to speak of the stance toward university autonomy, represented by the pre-war Takigawa Incident, and the large number of post-war Nobel Prize winners in the natural sciences as manifestations of this. If asked whether we create institutional histories to reinforce such images, I would be negative. I believe that by using even slightly more reliable primary sources and recording the trajectory of the university and the paths chosen in each era—even if the historical narrative appears at first glance to be a mere list of facts—something should become visible.