Visit to the Yoshida Yoshie Collection at UCLA
Right: Collection’s call label
The Library of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), USA, held a symposium on February 20th to commemorate the opening of the Yoshida Yoshie Collection―a collection of materials on Yoshida Yoshie donated to the library. Kikkawa from the Department of Art Research, Archives and Information Systems of Tokyo National Research Institute for Cultural Properties took this opportunity to visit the UCLA Library system’s sections and units related to special collections (archives). Accompanied by Tomoko Bialock, Japanese Studies Librarian of the university, Kikkawa made a tour of the East Asian Library (second floor of the Charles E. Young Research Library), Special Collections (basement of the same library building), Conservation Center (Powell Library), and the Southern Regional Library Facility. During the tour, Kikkawa met with specialists in charge of conservation treatments, creation of finding aids, digitization of individual items, and long-term preservations, who explained to him how to select, accept and conserve special collections and how to allow library users to access them, by using the Yoshida Yoshie Collection as a case study. He also discussed and exchanged information with each specialist about the situation surrounding special collections in Japan in the field of art. Through the tour of the UCLA Library, a library of one of the largest universities in the U.S., which accepts an enormous number of special collections in a variety of genres, including those on politicians, historians and literary figures, Kikkawa learned firsthand about its sophisticated system of accepting materials into special collections, and about the job specialization that allows each staff member to exercise his or her expertise. This visit provided him with an opportunity to realize once again the differences between the U.S. and Japan in terms of structural factors, including the arrangement of staff and the budget size allocated to special collections. A report of this visit will be presented and shared with relevant individuals and parties at a seminar to be held in May by the Department of Art Research, Archives and Information Systems.