January seminar at the Department of Art Research, Archives, and Information Systems

　On January 27, the Department of Art Research, Archives, and Information Systems invited KAWAGUCHI Masako (Head of the Research Library, Curation department, the National Museum of Western Art) to speak. Ms. KAWAGUCHI delivered a presentation entitled “Recent international trends concerning information on art-related literature: With a focus on the Art Discovery Group Catalogue developed with the Getty Research Institute (US).”
　The Art Discovery Group Catalogue as was mentioned in the title of Ms. KAWAGUCHI’s presentation is a bibliographic search system that came on line in 2013. According to Ms. KAWAGUCHI, the system “allows a search of the catalogues of over 60 art libraries in countries around the world along with 1.4 billion journal articles.” Moreover, the system has an interface in Japanese as well. This allows information to be provided by the National Diet Library in Japan in addition to information from major art libraries in the US and Europe. Pursuant to a 3-year plan, the Institute is currently creating a cultural properties archive, so presentations on recent trends overseas like that by Ms. KAWAGUCHI are a valuable source of information and a prominent indicator of efforts abroad. The Getty Research Institute in the US played a major role in the creation of the Art Discovery Group Catalogue, and Ms. KAWAGUCHI described some of the Research Institute’s efforts related to collecting and disseminating information in the Catalogue. In October of last year, the Director of the Getty Research Institute and colleagues visited the Institute, so the presentation provided information that would prove useful in discussions of future joint studies by the Research Institute and the Institute. The presentation mentioned the website of the National Museum of Western Art, and the Museum is actively working to make research information available on its website. This description was a valuable reference for determining the future direction of information dissemination by the Institute. The Institute plans to continue talks with an eye toward coordinating with the National Museum in the future.