The Current State of Compiling University Histories

2021/05/10

The first workplace the author ever 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 is inextricably linked to the compilation of university histories. Based on these experiences, I would like to use this article to record my thoughts regarding my involvement in the compilation of the "Kyoto University 125th Anniversary History." Therefore, 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 carry out commemorative projects for its 125th anniversary in 2022, one of which is the compilation of the "Kyoto University 125th Anniversary History." In April 2017, the 125th Anniversary History Editorial Committee was established, along with the 125th Anniversary History Editorial Office to handle the actual editorial work. Through discussions in the Editorial Committee, it was decided that the 125th Anniversary 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 2600th anniversary of the founding of the Japanese Empire. Although it is a massive volume exceeding 1,200 pages, there is no university-wide general history narrative other than the circumstances of its founding; the majority of the content consists of the histories of individual departments and faculties.

The next to be published was the "Seventy-Year History of Kyoto University" (1967), consisting of a "General Overview" (the general history) and the histories of each department. It is unclear from the remaining records why the commemorative project was carried out at the somewhat irregular interval of "seventy years," but as a result, it was successfully published just before the outbreak of the university student protests. The third was the "Centennial History of Kyoto University" (1997–2001), which included one volume of general history, three volumes of departmental history, and three volumes of source materials, as well as a photo collection. Therefore, the current 125th Anniversary History marks 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 cited as one of the pioneers. 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 from this period, but another major factor was that many private universities established before the war were reaching their 100th anniversaries one after another. 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 histories increased. Characteristics included the fact that large-scale histories spanning multiple volumes and totaling thousands of pages became common, an increase in content with high empirical reliability using abundant primary sources from both inside and outside the university, and the diversification of publication formats such as photo collections and pamphlets. 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 connections and exchange various information. The culmination of this was the establishment of the National Archives of Universities in Japan in 1996. Universities began to engage not only in compiling histories but also in activities such as exhibitions and institutional history education using the materials they had collected.

Entering the 2000s, large-scale histories were compiled at Tohoku University, Ritsumeikan University, Takushoku University, and Kyushu University, but the pace of publication does not seem to be as fast as 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. I would like to summarize these changes into three points.

Relationship with Archives

As large-scale histories were compiled one after another, the need for facilities to manage, utilize, and in some cases, make public the valuable materials collected for compilation began to be recognized. Many of the archives currently at Japanese universities originated from history compilation organizations. The Keio University Fukuzawa Memorial Center for Modern Japanese Studies was originally the Juku History Compilation Office, which compiled the "Centennial History of Keio University," and the establishment of the Kyoto University Archives, to which I belong, was also partly driven by 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 previously compilation organizations collected materials from scratch, it is now possible to make full use of the internal and external materials accumulated by archives, expanding the potential for more substantial content in university histories (depending, of course, on the extent of the archive's collection).

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

The Shift to Digital Media

The era when it was taken for granted that publications would be released in print is a thing of the past. The wave of digitalization is also reaching university histories. University histories that allowed users to view video or listen to music as supplements on CDs or DVDs have existed for some time. In recent years, however, histories that fully utilize digital media have appeared. As far as I am aware, the "Centennial 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 released entirely online (except for the photo collection), and no print version was produced. It is my sincere feeling that university histories have come this far.

It goes without saying that digital media has advantages. The absolute constraint of page limits in print media has virtually disappeared; there is no need to carry heavy books, as they can be accessed anywhere with an electronic device; they are searchable; they can be updated; and from the production side, the fact that they are cheaper to produce because paper and printing costs are unnecessary (presumably) can be counted as a major benefit. 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 they are updatable, the point at which they are considered "complete" is ambiguous. We must consider what the appropriate medium is while weighing the advantages of both.

The Issue of Authorship

It is common for Japanese university histories, especially the general history sections, to be written by the university's own faculty. Sometimes they are written by one or a few people, and sometimes 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 increasingly busy. 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 a proactive interest in writing an institutional history that (in many cases) offers no benefit to them. The second reason is the frequent reorganization of university structures. 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, it seems it will become increasingly difficult to record the history of each department—in other words, the history of research and education at that university.

What is the purpose of creating an institutional history? Of course, there is no single answer. There may be histories that "cherry-pick" only the good parts of a university to solicit 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, my answer is no. I believe that by using primary sources that are as reliable as possible, even if the historical narrative appears to be a mere list of facts, something will surely come into view by recording the trajectory of the university and the paths chosen within each era.