Construction of a Database Aimed at Complementing Information by Presenting Time Series of Scattered Regional Business Records in the Edo period

The Saga Prefectural Library and Saga University have in their collections the “Nikki" of the Saga clan and its branch clans, as well as a collection of business journals known as the “Nikki Mokuroku," which are summarized titles of these journals. This collection also includes private records equivalent to jounals kept in the homes of the feudal lord's officials. In order to gain an integrated understanding of the political and economic movements within and outside the domain at the time from these historical documents, the Saga University's Center for Regional Culture and History has constructed a "Time-series Database of ’Nikki' Materials Related to the Saga Domain," which allows users to reference 11 different journals surviving in the Saga Prefecture area, with journal images from the same date in parallel. In addition, the daily articles in the “Ogi-han Nikki Database" are also supported. As a result, records of various events and weather conditions on a given date complement each other, making it possible to collect information in an integrated manner. This paper presents an overview of the database and its current efforts, including potential applications such as machine learning.