Presentation at Art Documentation Research Forum
On December 4 and 5, a research forum commemorating the 20th anniversary of the founding of the Art Documentation Society was held at the Heiseikan Auditorium of Tokyo National Museum (for the lecture) and the Heiseikan small hall (for presentations such as exhibits). The forum was subtitled as “The Current Status, Issues, and Future of the coalition of M(useums), L(ibraries) and A(rchives)”, and the presentations and exhibits were given by nine relevant organizations concerned with cultural properties as well as art. Our Institute’s Department of Research Programming participated in the forum, and I gave a presentation under the title “Focusing on the Digital Archives of the Yearbook of Japanese Art”: I referred to the significance of the Yearbook of Japanese Art, which was first issued in 1936 and continues to be issued today, and mentioned various issues concerned with the editing of the yearbook in the information age. Then I presented suggestions for the utilization of information accumulated to date and further active publication. For the exhibition, I introduced our Institute’s database of the interior photos of Nagoya Castle prior to its destruction by fire. As one of the accomplishments of the joint research with the National Institute of Informatics, I also introduced the database (prototype edition) on the association retrieval site So (Imagine), which contains valuable photos of various Asian areas taken by our former researcher Odaka Sennosuke in 1932. The presentations and exhibitions allowed me to introduce the current status of Department of Research Programming in terms of information transmission, and also gave a glimpse into the future.