abstract

Three university libraries in the Kansai region of Japan, Kyoto University, the University of Osaka, and Kobe University, signed an agreement in 2023 to closely cooperate with each other to promote expansion of electronic resources and open science.

This presentation will introduce the features of the digital archives of our libraries and report on our past efforts and future challenges from the perspective of research support.

In order to research an author fully, it is important to make a comprehensive review of his work. Insofar, however, as so many of these plays have never been properly transcribed into typeset editions, it is necessary to rely on books published during the Edo period. Many libraries place restrictions on the use of materials published in the Edo period, and photoduplication services are often unavailable. In recent years, the rapid progress of digitization means that the number of plays and related materials that can be referenced on the Internet has increased dramatically. In this presentation, I will introduce the digital resources that I use to access both original and related material as well as provide references to earlier research.

Last year in Sophia, Willy Vande Walle presented the CEEJA Japan Library in Colmar, France.
In our presentation this year, as a follow-up, we will discuss the three issues.

The National Center for Art Research (NCAR) was established in 2023 within the National Museum of Art, Japan, as a central institution dedicated to the promotion of the arts in Japan. While it does not have a physical library-like space, NCAR operates Art Platform Japan (APJ), a web-based portal that provides a range of tools and resources to support both domestic and international research on modern and contemporary Japanese art.

The Art Research Center (ARC) of Ritsumeikan University has been building a large-scale digital archive of materials related to Japanese culture and art for over 25 years. ARC has developed a unique set of databases organized by type of material, enabling researchers to conduct effective research activities. The database clusters include not only materials held by ARC, but also materials digitized by ARC from museums in Europe and North America, as well as materials provided by institutions such as the National Institute of Japanese Literature and the National Diet Library.

The latest trends and future prospects of NACSIS-CAT/ILL and the E-resources Data Sharing Services.

The digital collections of the National Diet Library (NDL) are making a significant impact on the humanities and social sciences, both in terms of their extensive holdings and their powerful full-text search capabilities. This presentation introduces a novel methodological approach using large language models (LLMs) to analyze full-text data of modern Japanese novels provided by the NDL.

Since 1997, Historiographical Institute the University of Tokyo Old Photographs Research Project has been conducting research and preservation activities on collections of old photographs scattered around Japan and abroad whose provenance and transmission are certain and has also been collecting high-resolution digital image data. In some of these cases, the value of old photographs as historical materials has been reaffirmed, and after the survey, they were designated as national important cultural properties. Since 2003, the company has also continued to conduct surveys in cooperation with foreign institutions.

This presentation explores how the Digital Literary Map of Japan (DLM, https://literarymaps.nijl.ac.jp) can be applied to the education and research of classical Japanese literature, with a particular focus on nō drama. As a distinctive form of Japanese theatrical culture, nō frequently features historical landmarks and poetic place names (utamakura) in its poetic texts. These references often play a significant role in constructing the symbolic meanings of the works. Understanding the historical and cultural background, as well as the inherited and innovative literary imagery of these locations, is therefore essential for a deeper appreciation of nō.

For the past four years, we have employed the "Digital Literary Map of Japan" (hereafter referred to as DLM, https://literarymaps.nijl.ac.jp) as a teaching resource in joint courses on Japanese literature and theatre, as well as in international collaborative courses between Osaka University and Heidelberg University. The DLM not only facilitates spatial recognition of utamakura (poetic place-names) through mapping, but also functions as a database that provides geographical and historical explanations for over 100 famous sites and utamakura, along with example usages and visual materials.