There is great value in information about the intellectual resources accumulated by the national and local governments, such as books and cultural assets.
It is essential to facilitate an environment for more easily obtaining such information, and further promote its utilization.
The government is set to start creating "Japan Search," a portal site that will enable crossover searches for information about materials possessed by libraries, museums and other institutions nationwide. Ten institutions, including the National Diet Library and the National Archives of Japan, will provide pertinent data, and such information will soon be made available to the public on a trial basis.
The number of pieces of data is expected to reach more than 10 million when the system is launched. The government will seek to operate the site on a full-scale basis in 2020.
Each of these institutions currently operates its own database. The new site will link their databases, thereby enabling crossover searches for such information as a catalog of each institution's collection and where things are stored.
This will save users the time and effort of searching each database.
If the site is fully operated, it will make it possible to more effectively use each institution's archival materials for such purposes as research, business and educational activities.
The site can be used to discover documents that have been buried and use them for the study of past natural disasters, thereby helping devise disaster-prevention measures. It will also be possible to acquire all information about local works of art and cultural assets, and make good use of the data to develop tourist resources. It is advisable to increase examples of such utilization.
Help regional institutions
It is important to use the knowledge acquired through the trial data publication, for such objectives as making the site more user-friendly and ascertaining the kinds of data greatly needed by users.
In the future, the government hopes to call on regional museums, art galleries, private corporations and others to participate in the endeavor. It is indispensable to store more data and increase the usefulness of the site.
However, there are some problems to be tackled in the effort to expand the size of the site.
In some notable cases, it is difficult for regional institutions to preserve materials due to their budget and personnel shortfalls. It takes certain skills and knowledge to digitize materials and deal with copyright-related matters, so materials can be read and viewed on the internet.
Financial and other assistance from the national government will be important for fostering personnel who can properly preserve data, and for improving the technology involved.
In establishing sites that offer information about archival materials at museums and art galleries, the European Union is ahead of others. The EU is making more than 50 million pieces of data and other information available to the public in cooperation with more than 3,500 institutions, including those outside its area.
Behind the EU's efforts in this respect is a sense of urgency about giant IT corporations. Such companies are, in effect, monopolizing the data-search business, including that in Europe.
This nation needs to make progress in integrating intellectual resources in a manner that transcends areas and regions, by steadily bringing the Japan Search site on track.
(From The Yomiuri Shimbun, Feb. 17, 2019)
Read more from The Japan News at https://japannews.yomiuri.co.jp/
