National Diet Library Newsletter
No. 172, Apr. 2010
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Digitization of collections
–preserving and utilizing the materials
Planning Division, Administrative Department
This is a translation of the article in Japanese of the same title
in NDL Monthly Bulletin No. 586 (January 2010).
Contents
Photo 1: Stacks of the Tokyo Main Library
The National Diet Library (NDL), as a deposit library, has the role of preserving materials for the long term and hand them down to posterity. Thanks to the development of information technology in recent years, it has been expanding the digital library services available without a visit to the library. This article introduces the digitization of the NDL’s collections focusing on approaches taken in FY 2009.
1. Purpose of digitization
1.1 Digital library services
The NDL has digitized its collections up to now in order to provide the “digital library service,” which enables users to read the collections via the Internet from anywhere, taking advantage of the digital form (See the table below).
1998
- Formulation of the National Diet Library Electronic Library Concept
- Launch of the Electronic Exhibition showing digitized collections with commentaries
2000
- Launch of the Rare Books Image Database to view rare books including national important cultural properties in full color
- Start of the copyright clearance work to provide books published in the Meiji era (1868-1912) via the Internet
2002
- Opening of the Kansai-kan of the National Diet Library
- Launch of the Digital Library from the Meiji Era to view Japanese books published in the Meiji and Taisho eras (1868-1926)
2003
- Launch of the Digital Library of Children's Literature to view children’s books held by the International Library of Children’s Literature
2004
- Formulation of the National Diet Library Digital Library Medium Term Plan for 2004
2007
- Release of the National Diet Library Digital Archive Portal (PORTA), a navigation service to seamlessly search digital contents in Japan
Currently the NDL provides via the Internet 23 electronic exhibitions, 108,000 titles (156,000 volumes) of Japanese books published in the Meiji and Taisho eras (1868-1926) in the Digital Library from the Meiji Era (Japanese only) (Photo 2), 1,000 titles of rare books including national important cultural properties in the Rare Books Image Database (Japanese only) (Photo 3), 2,000 titles of children’s books mainly published in and before 1955 in the Digital Library of Children's Literature (Japanese only) (as of January 2010). All of these materials are copyright-expired, or permission received from copyright holders, or licensed by the Commission of the Agency for Cultural Affairs because the owner of the copyright could not be found.
The number of materials released via the Internet will continue to be increased.
Photo 2: Digital Library from the Meiji Era
(left: top page of the Digital Library, center: Soseki Natsume, Sanshiro ,1909,
right: Shimei Futabatei, Sono Omokage, 1907)
Photo 3: Rare Books Image Database
(left: top page of the Database, right: Tenjin-ki written about 1596-1615)
1.2 Preservation of materials
The NDL decided that the digitization would be the basic method of creating substitutes for the preservation of materials in and after FY 2009.
Library materials are always likely to be damaged as long as they are handled, and there is a limit to making good the damage. Materials can be preserved in unchanged condition by using the digital data instead of the originals (Photo 4).
Photo 4: Stacks for the preservation
Though the NDL had already converted the deteriorated materials (Photo 5) to microforms and had provided microfilms or microfiches (Photo 6) in place of the originals, the digital data will be provided hereafter in view of the ease of use and the technological progress.
Photo 5: Deteriorated material
Photo 6: Microfiche
In addition, the Copyright Law of Japan was amended in June 2009 to enable the NDL to digitize materials for the provision of digital data in order to avoid the originals being lost, damaged or defaced. (The amendment came into force in January 2010.)
2. Object of digitization and its usage
While the NDL’s annual budget for digitization has been from 100 million to 200 million yen (approximately from 1.1 million to 2.2 million US dollars), the supplementary budget for fiscal 2009 which was approved in May 2009 allocated to the digitization cost about 12.7 billion yen (approximately 140 million US dollars). It will bring about digitization on an unprecedented scale.
The NDL is planning to digitize books, magazines and children’s books. In addition, rare and old materials and other materials might be the object of digitization if the budget allows. The objects of digitization consist of materials which require prioritized handling in terms of preservation, such as severely-deteriorated materials, frequently-used materials and scarce materials.
Among the materials to be digitized, books published in the prewar period will be provided via the Internet as a part of digital library services after copyright clearance. Others are provided only within the library buildings (the Tokyo Main Library, the Kansai-kan and the International Library of Children’s Literature) for the time being.
The digitization of this time will make a full-fledged start of a new service which provides digital data in place of the originals within the library buildings. The NDL will also study how we will be able to utilize digitized images in the inter-library services in the future.
3. Digitization methods
The digital images will be created from the books and magazines themselves (hereinafter called “original materials”) or from microfilms (in case they have been already microfilmed). The NDL has digitized from microfilms in principle until now; therefore this is the first time to digitize from the original materials on a large scale.
We consider mainly using overhead scanners in digitizing the original materials. To avoid physical damage, the automatic page-flipping function will not be used, because many of the targeted materials have deteriorated paper.
In digitizing from microfilms, images will be created in gray scale and the resolution is set to 400 dpi in A3 size, but in digitizing from the original materials, images will be prepared in full color and the resolution set to 400 dpi regardless of their size. To decide the resolution, we scanned materials at many levels of resolution and considered the level of the image quality, the balance of the real capacity of images, and the costs. We are planning to create two kinds of image files: for preservation and for user services; and they will be in JPEG 2000 format.
We are now conducting a study on appropriate digitization methods, such as the scanning method and the resolution, for materials not in book form e.g. newspapers and maps.
Tables of contents will be converted to text in addition to creating images. This enables the search of tables of contents and viewing images of corresponding pages directly from the tables of contents.
The National Diet Library wrote up the methods of digitization in the Guidelines for Digitization of Materials in FY2005, and released it on the website to serve as a useful reference for libraries in Japan (http://www.ndl.go.jp/jp/aboutus/digitalguide.html) (Japanese only). The Guidelines are to be updated reflecting the results achieved with the materials digitization of this time.
4. Conclusion
There still remain many collections needing to be promptly digitized for preservation in the NDL. It is also hoped the digital library services will be much enriched. The NDL will promote efficient digitization based on the outcomes of the mass digitization of this time.
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