抄録
This paper introduces our approach in providing integrated access to multiple Japanese humanities databases. We propose a federated search system, which retrieves multiple databases in parallel through a single interface and provides real-time integration of retrieved results. Such a system along with a facility for cross-language search between English and Japanese is useful for users who are looking for materials in Japa-nese databases that are mostly available in Japanese, in which users who do not understand Japanese may not find the desired information. Using the proposed system, users get better results than the native database’s search interface. Even though the same content is being searched, the proposed system enhances the retrieved results. Users are provided with faceted navigations, unified search results of bilingual data holding basic in-formation, and links where the original records along with detailed information can be found. Faceted naviga-tions offer a new way of finding and browsing databases as an addition to the typical keyword searching and browsing. We applied the proposed system to the public versions of humanities databases of Art Research Cen-ter at Ritsumeikan University, which has been constructing digital archives of tangible or intangible heritages of Japanese arts and cultures.
