Shashi News 2004
Message from Ms. Katsuko Murahashi 2004
(English Translation by Tokiko Y. Bazzell)
Shashi Forum 02/19/2004
The Shashi Forum, organized by Ms. Murahashi and sponsored by Keidanren, was held on
February 19, 2004 (see also the announcement). It attracted over 110 people from all over
Japan. It was a huge success and several people could not even get in. Some of the speakers
were Mr. Yoshiharu Fukuhara, Shiseido, Mr. Teruhisa Kimura, Sumitomo Insurance, etc. It
is quite unusual for such famous business leaders to be speakers in this type of forum.
The mass media also paid much attention to the Forum. The Nihon Keizai Shinbun
(Nikkei) reported the Forum in its culture section on February 7, 2004 (see attached copy)
and the Yomiuri also reported on the Forum (see also the attached.)
News related to Shashi
Shashi Database Project
Ms. Murahashi and Ms. Izumi Koide of the Shibusawa Memorial Museum (Information
Center for Research on History of Entrepreneurship) are planning the development of a
Shashi database. The project aspires to create a huge Shashi database to enable users to
search the content. The Shibusawa Foundation fully finances the project. Ms. Murahashi
will be supervising the project beginning this spring 2004 and she estimates that the project
will take five or more years to complete.
Shashi Mokuroku (catalog) from the Japan Special Libraries Association (JSLA)
JSLA publishes the Shashi catalog bi-annually, however, it only shows materials received
by a given library. In practical terms, the catalog became a sort of accession list of comingled old and new Shashi. Ms. Murahashi has assumed responsibility for the catalog and
it will now list only newer Shashi, meaning that it was published within the last three years.
Holding institutions will also be shown.
Ms. Murahashi feels that the World of Shashi is still underdeveloped. She is critical of how
most librarians, business people, and scholars have dealt with Shashi. She believes that a
librarian's responsibility should go beyond simply acquiring materials. She thinks librarians
should take more initiative to organize and exchange information about Shashi to improve
Shashi information access.
In her opinion, the way requests are made for donations of Shashi seem too blunt.
Considering the cost that companies incur to create their Shashi, requestors should ask very
respectfully and thank companies individually for their donations.
bazzell (UHM)
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Shashi News 2004
"Business Heroes" column by Ms. Murahashi
Ms. Murahashi started her column on "business heroes" for a business magazine a year ago.
So far, she has written about the founder of Nayamuraya (Mr. Aizo Soma), Janome
Machine's Mr. Takuya Shimada, Guriko's Riichi Ezaki, Mr. Eiichiro Ueyama of Kincho,
Mr. Denzo Ito of Ito Ham, and Mr. Ryo Iida of Secom. It is much more interesting if you
can read Shashi along with the biographies of these business leaders.
Ms. Murahashi was also asked to write about Shashi episodes for a shinsho paperback.
Hope she will have time to do so very soon.
bazzell (UHM)
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