NCC News: News

Specialist Spotlight: Junjiro Nakatomi

Through our Specialist Spotlight series we periodically shine a spotlight on librarians and information specialists who are often behind the scenes working to support students, faculty, and staff. Whether you’re in the classroom to learn or teach or are conducting research near or far, these hardworking individuals make Japanese Studies possible.

This month we are delighted to shine a spotlight on Junjiro Nakatomi of Technical Services and Collection Development at the University of Southern California (USC) Libraries. Responsible for cataloging and classification within the library systems, Nakatomi is closely involved in making these services usable and more equitable within the discovery systems curated and updated for patron use.

First pursuing an education in American English Studies at Kansai Gaidai University (B.A.) in Japan and then in the United States in Anthropology at the University of South Florida (B.A.), Nakatomi would later continue in American Studies to receive a Master’s degree from the University of University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. Working as a Japanese Library Assistant in the USC Libraries Technical Services and Collection Development unit from 2008 to 2017, during that time he also acquired a Master’s in Library & Information Science from San Jose State University. Already equipped with copious knowledge of the library field, he began working as USC’s Japanese Cataloging Librarian in 2017, where he has been ever since.

Sometimes less visible than other library service specialists, Cataloging Librarians are some of the most essential team members of libraries and archives. Their work in classification, inventory, linking and creating records in databases, and more, provide you with the invaluable bibliographic and authority records you need to locate library resources. One such project Nakatomi led last year was a Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion initiative to improve subject descriptions in University of Southern California’s LGBTQ+ collections. Although most libraries follow the conventions of the Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH), many of these labels contain outdated and inappropriate terms that do not reflect current DEI standards and historical realities. With the support of a Dean’s Challenge Grant (an internal grant administered by the Dean of USC Libraries), Nakatomi and a small team of specialists analyzed catalog records within USC’s ONE Archives to identify these problematic headings and added some 300 new local subject headings for approximately 8,000 catalog records. This project greatly enhanced the inclusivity and discoverability of the collection. You can read more about this project in their recent publication in Cataloging & Classification Quarterly.

Nakatomi has also actively participated in the local Japanese American community. When he learned that Hinomoto Bunko (Hinomoto Library), affiliated with a local Japanese church in East Los Angeles, was closing, he proactively reached out to the church and spearheaded efforts to secure a donation of their library materials. In 2013, the USC Libraries received approximately 30,000 volumes from Hinomoto Bunko, which now constitute a significant part of the East Asian Library at USC known as the Hinomoto Collection.

Having recently begun another project on cataloging materials related to Japanese relocation camps during World War II, Nakatomi continues to provide critical services to scholars in and beyond the University of Southern California. We look forward to seeing what’s next!