午夜剧场

When I released this book at the end of last year, I was very surprised to see it become a weekly bestseller at famous stores like Tokyodo Shoten in Jinbocho and Maruzen Marunouchi Main Store.

It all started when the president of a publishing house I was visiting asked me to write a series for their email newsletter. So, I decided to write down the routines and research know-how I practiced daily at my previous workplace—the National Diet Library (NDL).

I took early retirement from the NDL in 2021 because I wanted to study the history of publishing and reading, but perhaps because I had been a salaried worker for so long, I felt it was better to have a place to "commute" to. Therefore, I decided to continue as a part-time lecturer at the Juku, while also visiting Koseisha (the publisher of my book) in Jinbocho once a week.

There, we held the Modern Publishing Study Group and published an annual research fanzine called "Modern Publishing Research" in April 2022. This also briefly took the number one spot at Tokyodo and was very well received by bibliophiles—my history of "browsing books while standing" was a hit—but this current book of mine seems a bit different.

The people who initially bought it seemed to be writers, proofreaders, and others who do research for a living. I wrote about the routines of the NDL Humanities Division, but contrary to my expectations, it sold as a business book. Its breakthrough in bookstores also started when the business book buyer at Book First Shinjuku stacked it on a display table. The buyer said, "It was something I wanted to read myself." It was also the business book buyer at Maruzen Marunouchi Main Store who pushed it. Books are also about how they are sold.

If you think about it, my book can also be used for writing graduation theses. According to scholars who have read it, it might be a bit difficult for undergraduates and is perhaps better suited for professors who supervise thesis writing, but it should also be useful for undergraduates and graduate students writing their theses. The fact that it became the number one bestseller at the Kyoto University Co-op Bookstore in January is likely a reflection of that expectation.

Actually, shortly after my book was published, the NDL's important database, the "Digital Collections," was greatly expanded. It mainly consists of pre-war books and official gazettes, but it's like having the Imperial Library built next door to your house. Since this will rewrite Japanese humanities and social science scholarship, I have hurriedly resumed my newsletter series titled "Reference Tips for the Age of Great Searching" (available on the publisher's website).

Masaki Kobayashi

Koseisha

184 pages, 2,200 yen (tax included)

*Affiliations and titles are as of the time this magazine was published.