"Multimedia remote multiple symposium" was organized by BBCC, B-ISDN Business Chance Creation, on May 15, linking Keihanna Plaza in Kansai Science City in Kyoto and the National Diet Library in Tokyo.

BBCC was established in December 1992 under the leadership of financial circles in the Kansai region, aiming to create new culture by researching, developing and testing various applications of Broadband ISDN (B-ISDN), which is attracting public attention as information telecommunications infrastructure in the next generation with 100 times as much transmission capacity as the ordinary ISDN. A test bed was established mainly in Kansai Science City and started to be used from July 1994.

The symposium was a part of an application forum held on May 14 and 15 with the theme "Frontier of the information-oriented society in the 21st century" to commemorate the 3rd year from the start of the experiment. The two meeting places were experimentally linked with B-ISDN so that the participants of the symposium could communicate with each other through high-vision pictures.

The theme of the symposium was "Expectation of the Kansai-kan (tentative name) aiming at '3A'". "3A" means service for "Anyone" at "Anytime" from "Anywhere". The symposium, which went on from 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m., started with a keynote speech by Mr. Shin-ichiro Ogata, Librarian of NDL, in Tokyo. After explaining the aim of the Kansai-kan project, he stated his expectation of the future "3A" service making good use of the traditional functions of the library. He also predicted that the Kansai-kan would establish a new standard of information delivery using new technologies. For that purpose, the NDL would like to cooperate with organizations in various fields including BBCC and the library sector, he said. Next was a keynote speech on the topic "Alexandria in Cyberspace" by Professor Yoshio Tsukio, Faculty of Engineering, University of Tokyo, in which he described what information services and library services should be in an advanced telecommunications network society, and his expectation of the Kansai-kan.

After the speech, the participants in Tokyo and the following four panelists had a lively discussion and Q&A session, with Mr. Akira Amano, publisher of the monthly magazine New Media, as moderator: Mr. Noritada Otaki, Director of the Kansai-kan Project Office, Administrative Department, NDL, from the point of view of carrying out the Kansai-kan project; Mr. Kaoru Okamoto, Director of the International Copyright Office, Copyright Division, Agency for Cultural Affairs, from his administrative standpoint; Professor Yuko Tanaka, Hosei University, from the point of view of users; and Professor Masaru Harada, University of Library and Information Science, who has a good knowledge of electronic libraries in foreign countries.

The symposium, with the latest telecommunications technology, was fruitful in grasping the idea of the electronic library in the future. At the same time, smooth communication through the clear and lifelike picture on screen made the participants in the two places feel that they were not 500 km apart. We hope this is symbolic of the NDL’s services after the opening of the Kansai-kan.