The Journal of Information Science and Technology Association

Featured article

Volume 66 (2016) Issue 1 Pages 2-7

Trends in the academic information of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and acquisition of the MENA region's local materials in Japan

Rie TAKAHASHI

The paper overviews trends in the academic information of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), and acquisition of the MENA region's local materials in Japan. First, it describes the academic articles' production in research institutes and also refers to the environment surrounding the humanities and social sciences' researches. Second, resource acquisition in Japan for primary sources is described, namely statistics, development plans, laws, and books published in the MENA region. Last, the paper focuses on the Gulf countries' attempts to be new information hubs in the MENA region, in addition to the impact of prolonged political unrest in other MENA countries.

Volume 64 (2014) Issue 4 Pages 133-139

The plans for meta-data of comic books and database possession construction project(<Special feature>MANGA)

Yoshihiro Ikegawa, Takahiro Akita

The Agency for Cultural Affairs, government of Japan, has carried out the Media Arts Digital Archive Project since FY 2010 in which they have built a massive database on media arts including manga. From FY2010 through 2011, the project made the database of the manga collections of the following five institutions; National Diet Library, Kawasaki City Museum, Yoshihiro Yonezawa Memorial Library of Manga and Subcultures (The Meiji University), Kyoto International Manga Museum, International Institute for Children's Literature (Osaka). It is reported here from the project that what is collected for the database, what categories are listed, how the data is organized and collected, and how the same items are identified. The project made clear identified the total numbers of items that the five institutions hold.

Volume 68 (2018) Issue 4 Pages 176-179

The story behind the “Dreamy Fusion Project”

Yuriko TAKAHASHI

The year 2016 was announced as the “First year of VR”. Also “User Experience (UX)” will be in prospect as the trend of marketing. It is assumed that “To provide richer UX services” becomes the pillar of the future user service in University Library. In the same year, Waseda University Library, which celebrated the 25th anniversary of the establishment as the Center for Scholarly Information, “Dreamy Fusion Project” was implemented utilizing Virtual Reality (VR). Communication among departments and Collaboration of faculty and staff / students resulted in a challenging and exciting project. This report is a production story of the soul of library staff who supported behind the scenes of VR production.

Volume 58 (2008) Issue 10 Pages 486-491

Recent trends of library finance and fundraising(<Special feature>Library economics and financial analysis for fundraising)

Ikuyo FUKUDA

Most Japanese libraries depend on financial aid from the parent organization. However, the recent economic downturn obliges libraries to reduce their budgets including material and staff costs. Few libraries have explored the alternative funding sources to cope with the serious financial situation. In order to provide a variety of services, fundraising must be an important issue to secure the additional revenues. Together with library friends groups and library foundations, American libraries have made a considerable effort for raising funds from individuals and foundations. Since online donation using Internet was introduced in late 1990s, library fundraising has been more competitive. This article reviews the recent trends of fundraising effort in American libraries and considers the possibility of fundraising for Japanese libraries.

Volume 71 (2021) Issue 4 Pages 165-170

Some International Standards for Digital Archival System for Cultural Resources

Kiyonori NAGASAKI

Recently digital archival system for cultural resources can adopt various standardized technologies which have been maintained by international bodies in order to enhance its availability. This essay mainly introduces characteristics and recent topics of Unicode, IIIF, and TEI among them. When we digitize cultural resources, it is important not only to adopt such standards, but also to care not to constrain nature of the resources by doing it. Sometimes we must consider improvement of such a standard. Then, it is important for people who engage in the digital archival system to address activities for international standards.

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2023 Volume 73 Issue 6

Writing Articles in English in the Humanities and Social Sciences: A case study in education research Akiyoshi YONEZAWA
Patent Analysis Functions in CAS SciFinderⁿ Ayako TAZAWA
INFOSTA News / Editor's Note
Challenges and solutions for Japanese speakers utilizing AI to produce academic papers in English Yosuke YANASE

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