BACKGROUND
Kyoto University Library was established in 1889, two years after the founding of Kyoto University, and now consists of a Central Library as well as over 60 branch libraries. The total holdings comprise approximately 5,500,000 volumes, and about 66,600 periodicals. Service at the Central Library is geared primarily to undergraduate students while the branches serve the staff and graduate students of the faculties and research institutes. The Central Library collection is arranged by the University Library Classification Table (pre-1982) and the National Diet Library Classification Table (post-1983). The branch library collections are organized according to a variety of classification schemes. The Online Public Access Catalog (OPAC) is available via the Internet at http://www.kulib.kyoto-u.ac.jp/. Presently, approximately 700,000 items are represented in the OPAC. Plans include having bibliographic data available for 1,000,000 items by the year 2000 as well as tables of contents of books available for searching.
The mission of the digital library at Kyoto is similar to the one expressed at Tsukuba University Library. Indeed, both projects are supported by a grant from the Ministry of Education. The digital library project at Kyoto University is currently called a "vacant bookshelf" as no data are available, but two projects are currently planned. The "Encyclopedia of Kyoto University" is conceived as a body of digital material, which will answer any questions about Kyoto University and its activities. It will cover the historical materials held by the University as well as reports of research activities carried out at Kyoto University. The second facet of the system is the digital publishing support system, which will set up a procedure for producing such reports online.
The library has digitized several historical materials over the years and plans to digitize 170 volumes of important cultural properties as well as treasure books, pictures and maps. The research reports will come from the dissertation abstracts of Kyoto University, which number some 800 titles annually. The digitized materials, the OPAC, the circulation system, and retrieval management functions are all run under KUINS-the Kyoto University Integrated Information Network System.
Under the earlier guidance of Prof. Makoto Nagao, a prototype digital library system called Ariadne investigated advanced aspects of support for electronic reading and information retrieval. One of the promising areas was a study of conducting retrieval based on table of contents information. "Fact retrieval function" utilizing natural language processing techniques has been explored, as has the topic of user friendly interfaces to large bodies of digitized text.
Government funding for the library is similar to that of Tsukuba University Library. For the FY 1998 funding was about ¥40 million for database creation and ¥70 million for the rental fee of the digital library system and the computer.
ISSUES
Japanese materials produced more than 50 years ago are in a script that most people no longer read. Thus, conversion of large numbers of these materials is difficult, and it is not known what utility there is to making them available. In terms of digitizing the important cultural properties 500 years of age and older, it is very difficult to read the text from the image, if it can be read at all.
According to the WTEC panel's hosts, original images are taken in 2,048 x 3,072 pixels (Kodak Pro-Photo CD, 16BASE), but with the limitations of the network speed and the resolution of the CRT display, they are currently distributing the reduced images (1,024 x 1,536 with JPG compression). However, with the progress of the technology, they plan to distribute more precise images with closer resolution to the original images.
There is some feeling that the job of a university library is to collect data, not to be charged with producing it. The library administrators acknowledged that there is tension between balancing traditional library acquisitions and producing digital collections, especially in light of a 15 percent budget cut planned for the next few years.
Science and engineering students and faculty have different needs for digital information than do those in fields such as history and literature. Current technical information is required from all over the world, and this is an area in particular where the university personnel feel they should collect digital materials via online journals and database services.
The administrators also acknowledged that there is no national coordination between projects financed by the Ministry of Education and those supported by MITI and the IPA. For example, the idea of the National Diet Library (funded by MITI and IPA) sharing information about its effort to scan 10 million pages of documents with the universities at Tsukuba or Kyoto is not seen as a topic of mutual interest. Rather, the Japanese government gives similar or identical themes to different ministries (and agencies) and lets them compete. In this way, it is felt that the best output quality of a new technology will result.
REFERENCES
Digital Library = Desktop Library. (Brochure.)
Kurohashi, Sadao and Makoto Nagao. 1997. Digital library system at Kyoto University. Department of Electronics and Communication, Kyoto University. Conference Proceedings of ISDL '97.
Kyoto University Bulletin 1996/1997 "Kyoto University Libraries."
Outline of the Kyoto University Library, 1997/1998. http://www.kulib.kyoto-u.ac.jp.
![[Previous Section]](../icns/leftarrw.gif){kind=small}
![[Top of Report]](../icns/tocbttn.gif){kind=small}
![[Send Your Comments]](../icns/cmmntbt.gif){kind=small}
![[Welcome Page]](../icns/jtecbttn.gif){kind=small}
![[Next Section]](../icns/rghtarrw.gif){kind=small}
Published: February 1999; WTEC Hyper-Librarian