Abstract
It was the author's experiences during researches into original materials that made him write this essay. The author hopes this report contains some suggestions helpful to Japanese museums conducting similar researches. For the purpose of preparing exhibitions, the author had been responsible for documentation of two groups of materials. One was compiled by Akitake Tokugawa who was the delegate of Japan's Tokugawa Shogunate government to the Universal Exhibition in Paris in 1867 and included numerous photographs. The other was the legacy of teachers at the Tokyo Higher School of Arts and Technology founded in 1922, comprising works of art and other image materials. The number of materials totaled several thousands, inevitably calling for documentation using computers.
The author found that exclusively character-based databases are more practical for such purposes, leaving image-data retrieval to cardboards holding photographs. Properly appreciating the importance of secondary materials other than works of art, art museums should consider cataloging of such materials a minimum obligation, otherwise we will lose much of them.
