Correspondence, reports, budgets, and other materials concerning the establishment of the Okayama Field Station and the subsequent publication of
Village Japan, including correspondence with Douglas MacArthur; also records and minutes, 1947-1987, of the executive committee of the Center for Japanese Studies; also papers relating to the programs and financial operations of the center; and photographs and films.
The Center for Japanese Studies records document the founding and functioning of the center, covering the period from the late-1940s through the 1990s. The center's executive committee minutes and official correspondence cover most of this period evenly. Otherwise, documentation of the center's history is somewhat uneven. The center's first decade is well covered, with a considerable amount of field research notes and audio-visual material. From the early-1960s on, however, such documentation is sparse. This later period is documented in other ways, though. The records include a considerable amount of material concerning grants and fundraising, and these documents often describe the center's activities in detail. The records pertaining to special activities of the center also cover the later decades well.
The records are arranged in nine series: Administrative Files, Correspondence, Course Material, Faculty Files, Financial, Grants, Research Special Activities, and Audio-Visual Material.