The term “digital archives” has a unique usage in Japan that is not accurately defined in English speaking countries. The original meaning of archives is “the place iwhere records are preserved, a repository.” However, digital archives cover “tangible and intangible cultural assets”, and utilize archiving techniques including “leading-edge multimedia technology” and “high - definition digital imagery”, as well as “advanced information networks” as a meaning of data transmission. Digital archives, which started from the digital processing of collected resources, will take on the functions of collection and transmission center not only of text and image information, but also every form of digitized information including sounds, music, images, animation, and games. Furthermore, through the digitization of collected resources, supported by the growth of the Internet, we are aiming for perusal “at any time, by anyone, from anywhere” and ready access searches of literature and data using complete bibliographical and archived catalog. Digital archives necessitate in addition to the ownership and copyright of original works stored as data, the protection of copyrights, related rights, and billing for data creators. Further still, for “databases equipped with search functions,” which is technological issue regarding construction, “common index systems” and “consolidated high-speed index technology utilizing metadata” are necessary.

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Printing has made the significant impact on the society and culture through its interaction with people in the history. Printing technology invented in China was perfected through the invention of Gutenberg's moveable metal type, and later greatly contributed to the development of human society and culture. Here, I would like to discuss the outline of printing history developed approximately some 1,300 years and contribute to a more clear understanding of the trends in contemporary digital communication and archives. In addition, with regards to the activities of the Printing Museum, Tokyo where printing materials are displayed in public. I will summarize the current state and issues particularly with display, storage, and digital archiving.

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This is an attempt to make a self-assessment of the HUMI Project, activities at Keio University, which was launched in 1996, with the acquisition of the Gutenberg Bible, as an inter-faculty initiative to make digital archives of rare books and manuscripts at home or abroad, and to offer some future prospects. While the HUMI Project started as a consortium comprising more than a dozen firms in information technology, communication, printing, trading, and dissemination of books, immensely benefiting from their financial and technical assistance, we made it a rule at the outset to avoid outsourcing as much as possible in terms of digitization of rare books from photography through digital processing and making digital images available on the Internet as well as other media. In the past eight years of digital archiving we have obviously made trials and errors, or in other words, have done a right thing at a right time, in choosing and practicing digital photography as well as data processing, which is summarized in the present article. The digital content which has thus been accumulated so far will be made good use of further development of networks in the digital research fields.

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It can now be said that cultural asset archives have already moved from the storage stage to an era of utilization. Printing technology has fulfilled a significant role in the fundamental function of digital archives to store cultural assets as digital data utilizing advanced text, graphics, imagery, acoustics and other composite technologies of the era, and to ensure utilization that makes full usage of the special features of various forms of media well into the future. This article will cover high-definition image processing, color management and other unique technologies in the industry, and media-mix methods of expression through examples of Toppan Printing Co., Ltd.'s pioneering accomplishments in digital archives, focusing on the fields of graphics and imagery. Toppan's digital archive, which started from the foundations of printing technology, will continue to evolve with the development of future media expression with its high definition and high color-tone printed reproduction quality from archived data, and by preserving architectural and other structures as 3D data and displaying them publicly through the company's independently developed virtual reality technology, among other activities.

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The polymerization behavior of acrylate resin has been analyzed and evaluated its mechanical properties such as tensile strength and elongation of the films which are cured by EB irradiation and UV light exposure. The existence of the cross-linkage of the polymer can be found by IR, NMR and the mechanical property measurements. Increasing EB dose causes the great change for the properties of the three dimensional cross-linked cured film. But, there is no difference in the UV system. From these results, we clarified that the films cured by different energy souse such as EB and UV have different properties. Further, it is found that there is a close relationship between the NMR relaxation times and mechanical properties such as tensile strength of the EB irradiation film.

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