Participation in WordCamp Kansai 2025
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In 2014, the Tokyo National Research Institute for Cultural Properties (TOBUNKEN) established a database of cultural property information using WordPress (https://
ja.wordpress.org/), a web content management system, which is still in operation (https://www.tobunken.go.jp/
archives/). Insights gained through approximately ten years of operation have been reported periodically at academic conferences and related venues. Most recently, on November 2, 2025, at WordCamp Kansai 2025 (https://kansai.wordcamp.org
/2025/), a conference organized by the regional WordPress community, Mr. OYAMADA Tomohiro, Mr. ISHIBAI Hideyuki, and Ms. FUTAGAMI Yoko of the Department of Art Research, Archives and Information Systems, presented a session entitled “Reconsidering WordPress from the Perspective of Database Structure.”
While a large amount of information is publicly available regarding WordPress screen design and data input methods, relatively little attention has been paid to its database structure. At TOBUNKEN, WordPress has been employed as a platform for publishing cultural property information databases, and since the beginning of its operation we have addressed the challenge of how to effectively integrate this information into WordPress’s database architecture. In the recent session, we explained the data storage mechanisms of WordPress from this perspective, drawing on concrete examples from the databases that the Institute has made publicly available to date. The presentation also reported on experimental attempts to handle large image files in WordPress by converting them into text through Base64 encoding, and a comparison between WordPress and Omeka S (https://omeka.org/s/), a content management system specifically designed for publishing cultural property information.
During the question-and-answer session, concerns were raised about whether the Institute’s experimental approaches might lead to slower page loading times. While display speed is an important performance indicator for general websites, we explained that for TOBUNKEN, these experiments also served to examine the possibility of creating backups through printing text-based content.
Through this session, it became clear that the technical priorities involved in managing and preserving cultural property information differ from those of typical blogs or corporate websites, a perspective that attracted considerable interest from conference participants. Going forward, in addition to disseminating cultural property information, TOBUNKEN will continue to study optimal methods for its management and long-term preservation.