Contribution of the Digital Publications of Tokyo National Research Institute for Cultural Properties to the Getty Research Portal
Tokyo National Research Institute for Cultural Properties has been promoting a joint research project with the Getty Research Institute in the United States. On May 2017, the digital data of exhibition catalogues and art magazines published during the Meiji period that are controlled by the Institute became searchable and accessible on the Getty Research Portal (GRP). We became the first contributor of such data in Asia. The digital data of the “Year Book of Japanese Art” was published in 70 issues by the Institute from 1936 to 2013. “Bijutsu Kenkyu (Journal of Art Studies)” (the 1st issue to the 419th issue) and “Science for Conservation” (the 1st issue to the 57th issue) have also become searchable and accessible on the GRP. As a result, the total number of titles provided by the Institute is over 636. Although these publications were accessible from our website (Tobunken Research Collections: http://www.tobunken.go.jp/archives/; “Science for Conservation” in PDF: http://www.tobunken.go.jp/~ccr/pub/cosery_s/consery_s.html) and our repository (https://tobunken.repo.nii.ac.jp/), the searchability and accessibility of this data from the GRP that has numerous users in the world, through a virtual art library resulted in a drastic change. This initiative enhanced the potential of overseas countries accessing our achievements in the research of cultural properties. As part of this joint project between the two Institutes, we are currently digitalizing valuable information owned by the Institute such as the exposition and exhibition publications during the Meiji, Taisho, and Showa periods. We will also add these digitalized publications to the GRP by the end of June 2019.