Kathi Matsuura (she/her/hers) has been the Japanese Studies Librarian at Standford University since January 2024. Prior to Stanford, she was the Japan Digital Scholarship Librarian at Harvard from 2017-2023.How did your journey in working with East Asian libraries and collections begin? Were there any opportunities that encouraged you to step into the East Asian Studies Librarianship?
My journey into libraries began much earlier than the start date of my career. In the early 2000s, I was a volunteer at a local elementary school library in Japan and was thinking about all the “really cool people” who become librarians. I figured any career that draws so much talent must be an interesting one to follow, so I applied to library school and returned to the United States to get my MLS in 2006. At the time, I thought I would ultimately return to Japan and work in an international school, particularly since my husband and home are overseas, but after various internships in elementary schools and corporate and university libraries, I realized that I love the intellectual stimulation of the university (and no longer had bountiful energy for herding first graders).
It was thanks to wonderful and generous mentors, particularly Dr. Kris Troost, the former Japanese Studies Librarian at Duke University, who made me aware of a career path in East Asian libraries and helped open the door to lifelong learning. Midway through the library science degree at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, I began pursuing a master’s degree in East Asian Studies at Duke University, and this was followed by graduate work at Yale towards a doctoral degree in (Japanese) history. All the while, my plans never strayed from a career in East Asia libraries, but the journey made me realize that boundaries between libraries, research, and teaching are porous and sometimes artificial. Libraries are where I feel most at home within the academic community.
What do you enjoy most about your career in East Asian librarianship so far?
Ultimately, I love being part of a team and group of people with shared goals. Although I am always looking for a new challenge and hoping to learn new things, I probably love working with people most of all – librarians, students, faculty – and this is what keeps my energy high and my satisfaction deep. It is a privilege to work with so many talented people and if I can contribute to a project, purchase needed collections or facilitate research in any way, then I am a happy and fulfilled librarian.
What did you regard as your achievements/accomplishments in the field?
Until recently, I would probably point to stewardship of the Japan Disasters Digital Archive (JDA) and the Constitutional Revision in Japan project as highlights of my work in the field. In addition to the research and pedagogical value of these sites, the complexities around maintaining and growing digital collections have been a challenging theme within libraries, and one that I hesitate to call an “accomplishment” due to eventual upgrades and future uncertainty. At the end of my career, I hope I can also point to physical collections and the sum of my work across many formats and disciplines as areas of contribution. I am proud to continue the work that others have created before me, and that others will continue when I am gone.
What change(s) and trend(s) in East Asian librarianship had you witnessed and envisioned?
Given my background in digital scholarship, I will naturally point to rapid changes in technology as well as the ability and expectations that users (particularly students and young scholars) have around technology as truly breathtaking and game-changing. In the past 10-15 years, I have not only seen increasing requests (and expectations) for digital, full-text research materials, but there is a growing availability of these materials (particularly since COVID) as well. When I first entered library school, I also never heard of textual analysis, LLMs, or machine learning, but the scale at which many scholars are approaching research is impressive and exciting, and I’m eager to see where the next 10-15 years takes us!
Tell us about your favorite book or series:
I love anything written by Ruth Ozeki, a Japanese–American/Canadian author and Zen Buddhist priest. My guilty pleasure, however, is anything by Jane Austen. I can read her books repeatedly and never get bored. It’s kind of embarrassing…
Tell us some fun facts about you:
I grew up a military brat and had a nomadic lifestyle that included moving frequently and attending many different schools. I am unable to count how many times I’ve moved across cities, but I’ve lived in 12 different states and 3 places outside of the U.S. (some of them more than once). In the United States I lived in Georgia, Alabama, North Dakota, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Wyoming, Hawaii, Iowa, North Carolina, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and now California. Outside of the United States, I’ve lived in Japan, China, and Hong Kong (during British rule).
