On August 25, 2026, I contributed in an edit-a-thon held at the Institute for the Study of Japanese Folk Culture, Kanagawa University. The Institute collects and organizes folk artifacts and historical documents from across Japan and conducts research focusing on the society of ordinary Japanese people—including the history of the fishing industry.
The roots of the Institute lie in the Attic Museum Society, founded by Keizo Shibusawa in 1921; this organization later became the Attic Museum and was renamed the Institute for the Study of Japanese Folk Culture in 1942, during the war. Although Shibusawa took over the management of Dai-Ichi Bank at the request of his grandfather, Eiichi Shibusawa, and subsequently served as Governor of the Bank of Japan and Minister of Finance at the government’s request during and after the war. However, as he had originally aspired to a life of scholarship, he poured his passion into training many researchers, starting with folklorists.
I once heard about an American researcher who studies Keizo Shibusawa. Shibusawa’s activities were extremely wide-ranging, from academics to business, and his researchers spanned many fields depending on their themes. At that time, I learned that “collective intelligence” was being used as a method to study Shibusawa. I was drawn to the story of how when each researcher brings their knowledge together, something that was initially incomplete gradually becomes better. Later, I learned that Wikipedia is an example of collective intelligence, which is a big reason why I started editing Wikipedia.
At the edit-a-thon held at the Institute, I expanded the article about the Institute itself (神奈川大学日本常民文化研究所). I took the existing article and added well-known facts, citing sources as I went. The Institute’s archives contained a wealth of source materials, which was a great help. Additionally, since some of the relevant books were available via the NDL Digital Collections, I was able to include detailed links to them.
Other contributors retrieved various materials from the archives based on their respective interests and set about writing articles. Notably, Saebo-san wrote “The Journey of Returning Historical Documents” (古文書返却の旅)—a book widely recognized in this field—and it was a delight to see it selected as a “Today’s featured article” on Japanese Wikipedia just two days later. I was also pleased that several staff members from the Institute tried their hand at editing for the first time and showed great interest in Wikipedia. It gave me a real sense that the seeds of passion for scholarship sown by Keizo Shibusawa have been continuously passed down and are flourishing.
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