Construction of humanities
resource infrastructure in theNational Institutes forHumanities
Makoto GOTO

National Museum of Japanese History, Japan

Outline
1.

Issues of Japanese Large-scale databasesin the National Institutes for theHumanities (nihu-INT)

2.

“khirin” in the National Museum ofJapanese History (NMJH)

3.

Issues of data sharing

nihu-INT

4

nihu-INT• nihu Integrated Retrieval System

 Started from Apr. 2008, renewed in March 2017
 http://int.nihu.jp/• Enable to search a wide variety of databases

collectively and encompassing• Over 6 million records in May 2016
• Objective databases (Feb. 2016): 175

 NIHU: 146 (Institutes: 138, Bases of area studies: 8) National Diet Library (NDL) : 13
 Center for Integrated Area Studies, Kyoto University: 16(system cooperation from May 2015)5

Database category• By institute, subject, field (6 subjects & 28 fields)
DB






Resource Catalogue

41

Library Catalogue

9Text

11

NMJH

42NME

20

NBK

31

Fact Data

48

RIHN

7

Sound

8

NINJL

25

21

NINJAL

6

ReserchResultnihu

7others

13

NDL

136

Features
1.

2.

Very diverse

 Temporal: From the dawn of humanity toyesterday Spatial：From a local area to the globe
 Value: From national treasure to a spoon

Many contents, but not cover the wholeof data ≠Google3.

Valuable data in the nihu-INT Not find easily

10Issues on nihuINT• These data are not “open.” All databases arecopyright-protected.

• Impossible to reuse these databases• Impossible translated into English byresearchers outside Japan.

• Most of the information here is either public

information, or public domain.
• Therefore, there should be rather little
information over which anyone can claim aright. However, for various reasons, many
people do make claims to this type ofinformation.

11• Much research material in the humanities

has been treated as personal property.

• In the past, researchers both from publicand private institutions who wereengaged in the conservation of material
thought of the material they wereconserving as their own.

12

“khirin” (knowledgebase ofhistorical resources in Institutes) in
National Museum of Japanese
History (NMJH)

Project of National Museum of Japanese History (NMJH)• “Integrated studies of cultural and research resources”• Enabling access to primary evidence of research results• Promoting the application of Japanese studies outsideJapan• Enabling backup of resource information in case ofdisasters.

• Constructing networks of historical and museum

resources in universities and museums in Japan→Visualizing historical resources in Japan

Visualization of Japanese historical resources• Constructing digital networks of historical resourcesin universities and museums used through thesesystems• The systems was opend in May 2018 →”khirin(knowledgebase of historical research in institutes)”• “khirin” is an attempt to provide access tohistorical materials held by universities andmuseums on their networks as well as to offer
data in a stable and sustainable manner incollaboration with the Japan Search.

Features of “khirin”• “khirin” mainly connects mutual links withNMJHʼs collection catalogues, full-text search,and keywords.

• All the metadata are described in each data

source to connect relevant data using RDF in“khirin”.

• Using these links, the complexity of plural

catalogues can be absorbed.

• Through the SPARQL endpoint, thisapplication allows one to connect resources
with anyone worldwide.

Sharing text data
through TEITEICollaboration withother universities

Mutual link between TEI
header and RDF
Collaboration between TEI links
and text annotations
RDF link ofbibliographic
information andannotation

Sharing images
through IIIF

RDF link of building
information andannotation
Collaboration withother universities

RDF
IIIF

Sharing catalogue

data through RDF

Mutual link between
catalogues in different fieldsof the same resource

Information collaboration
using links by knowledge

Collaboration withother institutes

Data Sample Rekimin Card
• A card catalogue of historical and folklore

surveys conducted by the Agency for
Cultural Affairs in Japan between 1972 and1974, before NMJHʼs establishment in1983.

The outline of Rekimin cards
1.

Snapshots indicating resource
information in Japan in the first half ofthe 1970s.

2.

All cards contain spatial information.

3.

Cards include temporal information, but
its accuracy needs to be verified.

4.

Some of the cards show resources thatwere already lost.

A new trend in Japan: “digitalarchive”

“Digital Archive”• Since about 2015, there has been a newmovement in Japan in a slightly different
context from digital humanities.

• A system to systematically and globallytransmit various content from Japan isneeded.

“Japan Serach” (provisional)• the idea was originallymodeled on“Europeana”• The “Japan Search” isbeing developed torealize theaforementioned“Japanese version ofEuropeana,” and a
prototype is underdevelopment.

Issues• How we can preserve data for a long

period of time under such circumstances.

• Many of the digital archives in Japan are

designed only for finding out information,
while not much attention is paid topreservation.

Isolation of data and systems• Systems and data should be isolated.
• And to preserve data for a long period oftime, it is essential to use de-facto
standard or equivalent data formats sothat data formats have a long life-span,
which makes migration easy.

Maintaining URLs
• In recent years, the Japanese government

ministries changed most of their URLs
along with the update of their websites,
which became a big problem.

• The National Museum of Japanese History

also had to pay the cost of reviewing thesetup files, which were difficult to redirect,
when it adopted HTTPS.

• Point out again the difficulty ofmaintaining URLs as a premise of longterm preservation of data.

How we see data download• By making the overall data available fordownload in formats easier to understandand keeping it distributed, we canpreserve data. No organization deploys
data in this manner in reality. To obtain aset of data, we need scraping or some sortof techniques.

Thank you very much