NISO+ 23, Feb. 14, 2023

Multilingual issues ofscholarly publishing in Japan武田 英明
Hideaki Takeda
takeda@nii.ac.jp
Chair, Japan Link Center (JaLC)
Professor, National Institute of Informatics (NII)
Special Thanks: Ritsuko Nakajima (JST)Japan Link Center (JaLC)• A Registration Agency (RA) for the DOI
Foundation• Founded on 2013
• Four founding institutions:• National Institute of Informatics (NII)• Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST)• National Diet Library (NDL)• National Institute for Materials Science(NIMS)• Membership• Full member: 71• Associate member: 2837

• Scope: scholarly publication in Japan

Scholarly activities in Japan• Mixture of domestic and international activities• Difference by disciplines

Int’l Community• Natural Science (mathematics, physics, …)• English is the major scholarly publishing language• Japanese is mainly for domestic communication• Engineering, medicine, agriculture …

• Large population of practitioners (engineers, doctors, nurses …)• Both Japanese and English are used

• Social science and literature• Main language is Japanese• Various languages are also used
Domestic Community

Magazine

My publication
Invited Talk
JournalPresentation
Conference

Technical Report, Preprint, Univ. Bulletin

Statistical data of JaLC
Language# of content
Codeja
4,920,585
unk
4,443,716
en
4,020,832
de2,439
fr
1,351
zh
295
ru
207
la55
es
47
ko
39
it
36
sv
27
vi
27
da23
sw
15
lb
13
co
12

Ratio
36.7%
33.2% el
30.0% id
0.0% pt
0.0% hi
0.0% hu
0.0% ar
0.0% eo0.0% pl
0.0% nl
0.0% mi
0.0% ur
0.0% th
0.0% tr
0.0% ms
0.0% my0.0% sneu

ja+unk : en = 2:1
1111
11101010
987
77766554

0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%

Statistical data of JaLC
Site ID
lang_cd # of content
SI/JST.JSTAGE
en3599360
SI/JST.JSTAGE
ja
3589636
SI/NDL.NDL.Searchunk
2966132
SI/JST.JSTAGE
unk
1094454
SI/JAMAS
ja
573765
SI/NII.JAIRO
ja
419474
SI/NII.JAIRO
unk
383102
SI/NIJL
ja
182638SI/NII.JAIRO
en138972
SI/JST.NBDC.GlyCosmos ja
120342
SI/JST.NBDC.GlyCosmos en120342
SI/JAMAS
en106320
SI/SANBI
en
15572
SI/JAEA.JOPSS
ja
11091
SI/JAEA.JOPSS
en
11091
SI/DBCLS
ja
5504
SI/ZSOJ
en
5494
SI/ZSOJ
ja
4601
SI/ICIC
en
4008
SI/JAMSTEC.DC
en2744
SI/MYU.SAM
en2615
SI/NII.JAIRO
de2289J-Stage: Journal Platform
ja+unk : en = 10:7

IRDB(JAIRO): Aggregation of
Institutional Repositories
ja+unk : en = 6:1

JA/EN distribution in J-Stage [JST]Journal domain
Literature, Language & Linguistics and Art
Psychology, Education
Law, Political Sciences
Philosophy, Religion
Sociology
Japanese scholarly Anthropology, History and Geography
Economics, Business & Management
societies use it for Architecture and Civil Engineering
their publication
General Medicine, Social Medicine, and• They mainly publish Nursing Sciences
Japanese journals Clinical Medicine
Environmental Sciences• Japanese scholars Agriculture and Food Sciences
also use
Earth Sciences and Astronomy
international
Interdisciplinary Sciences
journals published Engineering in General
by international
Information Sciences
publishers
Chemistry
This categories for a Biology, Life Sciences and Basic Medicine
Electrical and Electronic Engineering
journal title are
Mechanical Engineering
multiple (av. 5)
Pharmaceutical Sciences
Nanosciences and Materials Sciences
Dentistry
Physics
Mathematics• J-Stage is the mostpopular Journal
publishing platform
in Japan••

Total:# of title JA
EN Mix J+M J+M/#J396
145
37 214 359 90.66%
711
336
70 305 641 90.15%313
145
34 134 279 89.14%274
117
30 127 244 89.05%
587
257
69 261 518 88.25%
441
181
59 201 382 86.62%496
206
68 222 428 86.29%
495
142
89 264 406 82.02%
873

349

164 360 709 81.21%

793
358
771
341
832
709
618
458
1056
394
421
474
479
361
378
176

311
112
247
100
266
195
194
130304128140134
145
10610848

151 331 642
69 177 289
156 368 615
71 170 270
179 387 653
162 352 547
148 276 470
110 218 348
260 492 796
99 167 295
107 174 314
124 216 350
126 208 353
97 158 264
105 165 273
61 67 1153118

80.96%
80.73%
79.77%
79.18%
78.49%
77.15%
76.05%
75.98%
75.38%
74.87%
74.58%
73.84%
73.70%
73.13%
72.22%
65.34%

83.80%IRDB(Institutional Repositories
DataBase) [NII]• Aggregation of Institutional Repositories in Japan• 772 IRs

total number
fulltext(rate)
3,841,382
2,842,226 (73.99 %)number of DOI (rate)
812,983 (21.16 %)Number of contents by resource typedepartmental bulletin paper

1,589,430

journal article

593,451

other414,369

article220,626

conference paper

197,366

research report

196,577

thesis173,078

doctoral thesis

148,066

dataset89,154conference object

74,108book

61,898technical report

58,394learning object

11,559Departmental bulletin:
A periodical publication edited andpublished by departments of universities

Bilingual metadata• Publication in Japanese often have English
metadata in addition to Japanese metadata• Introducing activities in Japanese scholarly community
to English community• Distinction of primary and secondary metadata

Scholarly activities in Japan• Mixture of domestic and international activities• Difference by disciplines

Int’l Community• Natural Science (mathematics, physics, …)• English is the major scholarly publishing language• Japanese is mainly for domestic communicationJ -> E• Engineering, medicine, agriculture …

• Large population of practitioners (engineers, doctors, nurses …)• Both Japanese and English are used

• Social science and literature• Main language is Japanese• Various languages are also used
Domestic Community

JaLC metadata for multiple
languages• Journal Metadata items allowing multiple language
values• Title• Creator• Affiliation• Abstract• KeywordStatistical data of JaLC
Language# of content
Codeja
4,920,585
unk
4,443,716
en
4,020,832
de2,439
fr
1,351
zh
295
ru
207
la55
es
47
ko
39
it36
sv
27
vi
27
da23
sw
15
lb
13
co12

# of registration # of content
1
6,997,923
2
3,193,662
3
1,556

Ratio

36.7%
33.2% el
30.0% id
0.0% pt
0.0% hi
0.0% hu
0.0% ar0.0% eo
0.0% pl
0.0% nl
0.0% mi
0.0% ur
0.0% th
0.0% tr
0.0% ms
0.0% my0.0% sneu

11111110101098777766554

0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%

Multiple language metadata in JStage
Title
Language
Total
EnglishJournalMixed
JournalJapanese
JournalMisc.

Japanese Onlyand English English

Nothing Total

34%

51%

14%

0%

100%

1%

8%

91%

0%

14%

36%

60%

4%

0%36%43%

56%

1%

0%

46%

30%

66%

4%

0%

4%

Only JapaneseIssues for bilingual metadata• System Issues• Treatment of multiple data values by language• Once it was the serious problem• CrossRef metadata in the past
• Now most systems can treat them
• Search• Single language or mixed?
• Mapping between systems• Difference of primary language• DataCite Case

Issues for bilingual metadata• Semantic Issues• Relationship to Content Language• What means metadata in English for content inJapanese?
• Just translation or something more• Authors’ intension• How much do they want to deliver their content toaudience in English?
• How do they want to express metadata?
• e.g., expression of name (local name or English name)Emerging issues• Automatic translation is coming• Access content as well as metadata via automatictranslation• New issues• Accuracy of translation• Risk of misunderstanding• Authorization of translation• Formal or informal translation• Willingness of translation• Authors’ expectation• Risk of unexpected audience• e.g., ethical issues

Summary• Multilingual metadata and content exist in somedisciplines in scholarly publishing in Japan• So how is in other languages? Similar or different?

• Metadata may be two or more by language for asingle publication• Some issues exist but not so serious• Introduction of automatic translation will causesome change of academic culture• The big wall is falling down
• Some will express welcome but some complain for thechange