1. Introduction
Our digital library system - Kyoto University Digital Library - has two functions.
One is to transmit digitalized information outside our university. We make the
information and materials inside our university accessible to people all over
the world via the Internet. Our second function is to deliver digitalized information
inside our university. We deliver digitalized information including e-journals,
databases, and Internet resources for academic research to researchers and students
at Kyoto University.
Our Rare Materials Exhibition at Kyoto University Digital Library is the most
concentrated content for our information transmission. Kyoto City was the ancient
capital of Japan for more than one thousand years. Consequently, we fill an
important role for our society and the world in preserving and providing the
valuable and numerous antiquarian materials in Kyoto University.
Kyoto University Library has been digitizing collections of rare materials including
the National Treasures of Japan, Important Cultural Assets of Japan, and other
special collections. As of early August 2004, 3,331 items and 419,229 image
files are on public exhibition via the Internet.
Our Rare Materials Exhibition is primarily targeted at off-campus public users.
These users actually account for more than 90 percent of all the users of Kyoto
University Digital Library, which includes other contents such as e-journals
and digital publications. Last year, in 2003, more than 1,100,000 people accessed
our Digital Library site to look at over 13,500,000 pages. Above all, the visitors
at our Rare Materials Exhibition account for approximately 80 percent of these
people.
2. History
Our Digital Library Program was funded by the Japanese Ministry of Education,
Science, Sports, and Culture (Monbukagakusho), which allocated budget for a
Digital Library Program to only five university libraries for the first time
in 1997. We had, however, independently started our digitizing project in 1994.
In 1994, we held our annual exhibition of Yoshida Shoin and His Associates.
In that exhibition room, we displayed the digitized images of all the pages
of the materials in the showcase. This was made possible through the Ariadne
system. Ariadne was an experimental digital library system developed by the
Digital Library Research Group chaired by Professor Makoto Nagao.
In 1995, the University Library's website was established, and we released publicly
accessible contents on the web. An example of these contents was the scanned
images of the Kuni-jo Kabuki E-kotoba, known as the genesis story for Kabuki
plays.
In 1996, grant-in-aid funds from Monbukagakusho enabled us to digitize a large
number of the titles. In our autumn exhibition, we exhibited the digitized images
of the National Treasure, Konjaku Monogatari-shu.
In 1997, the annual allocation of the national budget for our Digital Library
Program by Monbukagakusho was started. Using that budget, we released our current
system of the Digital Library and Rare Materials Exhibition in 1998.
In 2000, the Kyoto International Conference on Digital Libraries was held at
Kyoto University Library. Last year, in 2003, we made approximately 50,000 images
for about 23,000,000 yen, most of which have already been released.
3. Concepts
Our digitizing program aims at the wide use and preservation of antiquarian
materials. We have an important social mission providing and preserving the
large number of antiquarian materials held by the libraries, faculties, and
institutions of Kyoto University. However, in order to preserve precious materials,
our users are not permitted to repeatedly handle them. Our digitization enables
public users to use our antiquarian materials easily at any time and from anywhere
in the world, a service which was previously only provided for a limited number
of academic scholars. Scholars of Japanese studies who live abroad or far from
Kyoto University will not need to make long journeys to our library, and students,
teachers, and lifelong learners will not be shut away from our cultural heritage.
Additionally, I would like to stress that our digitizing project aims to provide
easy access for the public, but we do not use the most advanced technologies
to shape and preserve exact replicas of the materials. We are preparing moderately
compressed and downsized JPEG images, which can be conveniently downloaded via
the Internet, because high-resolution and huge digital images are not necessary.
All our image files are formatted with HTML and JPEG, which are widespread all
over the world, to offer access by using normal Web browsers. For a few contents,
we have adopted some plug-ins or other specific systems for the purpose of highlighting
the characteristics of the antiquarian materials. In that case, however, other
simple data files formatted with HTML and JPEG are provided without exception.
We do this because some of our target users around the world may use old-fashioned
computers or web browsers, access via slow Internet connections, or prefer not
to download any software or plug-ins.
Of course, we make digitized images of all the pages of the materials in color
to differentiate the letters and blots.
4. Digitization Process
At the Digital Library Section, we plan, organize, and supervise the digitizing
work, which includes microfilming the selected materials, scanning and generating
preservation master images, and producing JPEG and HTML files for Internet access.
Digitizing work requires high technology and skill, which can be properly done
by outside venders under contracts.
We shoot materials in color in 35 mm on microfilm for the first step in the
process of our digitizing work. Master images for preservation are prepared
in the form of Kodak¡Çs ImagePack CD. However, we think that electronic media
such as CDs cannot currently be preserved for a long time and that microfilming
is a better medium for preservation. We also microfilm because shooting with
a digital camera costs more for same quality as microfilming.
In addition, we convert the master images to JPEG format for providing them
via the Internet. We basically provide two types of JPEG images, which are thumbnail
images of 512 x 768 pixels, and detailed images of 1,024 x 1,536 or 1,400 x
2,100.
5. Problems
We provide collection catalogues based on card catalogues. There is a search
system for these catalogues, but it is not integrated with our library¡Çs OPAC.
We cannot begin to input the records of our antiquarian materials into our OPAC
because we have not yet finished the retroconversion of old modern publications.
In addition, this search system is only for bibliographical records. Text data
transliterated from materials are not prepared except for a few works. Explanatory
notes, virtual exhibition contents, and English contents should also be provided
in abundance for public and overseas users. This work will require a very long
time and high cost, but we are continuing step-by-step with this work, with
help from some scholars and graduate students at our university.
Now, we are freely releasing our digitized images, without any watermarks. We
are not using any watermark systems because of their cost. We have also not
required any payments from users because we think it is our mission to serve
the public. Our university, however, is being transformed into an Independent
Administrative Institution (Hojin-ka), and we may have to change in the future
in ways such as relying on contributors or assistance from outside our institution.
This means that our project should be flexible for the purpose of fulfilling
our social role of providing and preserving our antiquarian materials.
URL
Rare Materials Exhibition: http://ddb.libnet.kulib.kyoto-u.ac.jp/exhibit/index.html
Kyoto University Digital Library: http://ddb.libnet.kulib.kyoto-u.ac.jp/minds.html
Toshinori EGAMI
Digital Library Section, Kyoto University Library
(Sep. 3, 2004)