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"INTRODUCTIONDespite Japan’s history of industrialization since the nineteenth century and its current membership of the Group of Eight, those involved in business archives in Japan have long been isolated from opportunities to share their information on Japanese business archives with their international counterparts, except for those belonging to the China Archives Association and some European archivists and scholars. As such, there has not been much of a connection with the Section on Business and Labour Archives of the International Council on Archives (ICA/SBL) and thus there is no entry on Japan in Business Archives in International Comparison1 published by the section. As one of those involved in preservation and utilization of business archives in Japan, I am very excited about this opportunity to report on Japanese business archives to our friends from the United States and to share with them what we see in the present situation.I would like to first present an overview of business archives in Japan and then explain the relationship between shashi (published company histories in Japan), which genre is not often seen abroad, and business archives. I would also like to introduce issues surrounding disposition, salvage, and preservation of business archives in Japan citing examples from corporate M&#38;A and bankruptcy cases which frequency has surged recently. Toward the end of my presentation, I am going to report on the issues faced in accessing Japanese business archives based on the most updated information obtained through the research conducted for the project of compiling a directory of business archives in Japan, which is currently undertaken by the Resource Center for the History of Entrepreneurship, Shibusawa Ei’ichiMemorial Foundation. ....  "Link to a PDF for the Japan-U.S. Archives Seminar, May 2007