Nagasaki Museum of History and Culture

http://www.nmhc.jp/ (Japanese)

http://www.nmhc.jp/global/english_leaf.pdf (English brochure)

Date of Trip: February 2014

Source : Takahiro Yamamoto (t.yamamoto1@lse.ac.uk)

Location:

1-1-1 Tateyama, Nagasaki-shi, Nagasaki-ken Japan

〒850-0007

Getting Started:

Formerly the location of Nagasaki office of the Tokugawa shogunate, the museum holds an extensive collection of oridinal documents from Tokugawa and early Meiji period especially with regards to Japan's foreign relations. The internal documents of Nagasaki Office as well as letters to/from Qing's Shanghai Daodi enable you to take a good look at the workings of this municipal yet international office (most original materials from the bakumatsu and early Meiji period are handwritten in brush, though some are neat enough to require no training in kuzushi-ji). Correspondence between the Foreign Ministry in Tokyo and the magistrate of Nagasaki are also interesting. The reading room is located on the ground floor. No letter of introduction or IDs needed. All you need to do is fill in the user's form upon arrival.

Getting there

The museum is located in the central part of Nagasaki City. If you fly in to the Nagasaki airport, take an airport shuttle (40 mins) to Nagasaki train station and you can walk from there. Easy 7-8 minute walk. The museum building is massive and hard to miss if you are heading to a correct direction.

Language

primarily Japanese; Some of the staff may speak English.

Opening hours

7 days a week, 9:30am - 6pm. Closed on the third Tuesday every month and the new year's day.

Consultation

You need to use the computer in the reference room, identify the documents you want on their online catalogue and print out the order slip for each one. You can order up to five documents at a time. You can place more orders when you return what you have checked out. No limit on the number of document requests per day. Each time the archivist will call up someone in the storage room and they will bring the documents to you. It usually takes less than ten minutes.

General working condition

The room is well lit and quiet. For the two days I was in, the desks were never full. If you are taking pictures they can lend you a camera stand and weights.

Policy on Technology

Self-service photocopies cost 10 yen per page.

You can use laptops. There are a few plug points in the reference room that you can use. Photographs are allowed for a fee of 200 yen per document. It is the same price no matter how many pictures you take from one document.

No wifi. 

Particulars

There is a big, blue binder titled something like "Index for government documents from the bakumatsu and Meiji period" at the bottom of the bookshelf closest to the reference counter. I was not allowed to make photocopies of this index, but it contains far more detailed information than what appears on the online catalogue. You should definitely consult it to see if the documents you want are listed there. If they are, it is likely that the index tells you names and/or themes of individual correspondence within the documents.

Etc

Anywhere in the city centre works for visiting the museum, I can recommend this place for convenience:

royalhotel.jp

There is a convenience store one block away southwards from the museum for quick eat. The area is somewhat devoid of chocie for restaurants, but there are a couple of cafes/diners if you make a right on the first street out of the museum entrance.