Report on Activities of the IFLA/PAC Regional Centre for Asia
January to December 2006
The IFLA/PAC Regional Centre for Asia (PAC Tokyo) has continued to develop the preservation network in Asia and strengthen regional cooperation.
Following two meetings in December, 2005－an open seminar on the damage caused by the Indian Ocean Tsunami and a meeting of directors of the PAC Regional Centres in Asia－, PAC Tokyo organized the pre-conference of WLIC 2006 in Tokyo. Inviting speakers distinguished for their long-standing preservation/conservation activities in Asia, various preservation issues in the region were presented and discussed.
Based on IFLA/PAC Strategic Plan 2006-2008, PAC Tokyo made a draft of Action Plan 2006-2008 for IFLA/PAC Regional Centres in Asia.
The following is what NDL and PAC Tokyo carried out from January to December 2006.
1. Publications
NDL translated “Care, Handling, and Storage of Photographs” (IPI, no.5) into Japanese, which was published by the Japan Library Association in April and distributed widely among Japanese libraries.
In September, NDL published in Japanese “The Documentary Heritage Damaged by the Indian Ocean Tsunami: Proceedings of the National Diet Library Open Seminar in 2005” (NDL Library Science Series No.39). The online version is available from the NDL website. English full papers have been uploaded on the website of the PAC Tokyo.
(2) Distribution of IFLA/PAC publications
PAC Tokyo distributed the following IFLA/PAC publications to the libraries and institutions of the area concerned:
International Preservation News, No.37~39
International Preservation Issues, No.6
(3) Contribution
At our request, Naoko Takagi, Yoriko Chudo and Reiko Maeda, founders of Paper Conservators Asia Unlimited (PCAU) contributed an article titled “Report on the project of digitization and conservation of rolled palm leaf manuscripts and related activities in Nepal” to IPN No.38.
PAC Tokyo contributed a brief report of the IFLA pre-conference “Preservation and Conservation in Asia”.
(4) Update of the mailing list
PAC Tokyo sent a questionnaire to the overseas libraries and institutions to confirm their need for PAC publications and update the mailing list for distributing them. The updated mailing list will be uploaded onto the website of PAC Tokyo later.
2. Training
(1) The 10th Preservation and Conservation Training Program
NDL held two one-day training programs in October in the NDL Kansai-kan(Kyoto).The program aimed to provide Japanese librarians with basic theory of preservation and elementary techniques for mending deteriorated materials. In all, 34 librarians participated during the two days.
(2) E-learning
NDL developed an e-learning system for library staff members mainly in Japan and started an online training course on preservation and conservation in June. This e-learning is expected to complement the Preservation and Conservation Training Program held yearly in the NDL. Soon, the number of applicants far exceeded the limit. Participants in the first term (June to September) were finally 181 librarians (43 from public libraries, 103 from academic libraries, 15 from special libraries, and 20 from other types of libraries). The second term started in November.
(3) Dispatch of lecturers
Staff members of the Preservation Division have, by request, delivered lectures and technical assistance on preservation/conservation to Japanese libraries. This year in March, Mr. Shigeru Otake lectured at Rikkyo University Library.
3. Raising awareness
(1) The 13th CONSAL Conference
Hiroshi Sakamoto, Department Director of the Collections Department, NDL Kansai-kan, presented a paper in place of the Director of PAC Tokyo at the session on Preservation and Conservation and Copyright of the thirteenth Congress of Southeast Asian Librarians (CONSAL) Conference held in Manila on March 25-30,on the theme: CONSAL at the Crossroads: Challenges for greater regional cooperation.The title of the paper was “Preservation needs in Southeast Asia and the IFLA/PAC Regional Centre for Asia”.
(2) International Symposium: Practice of Conservation in Museums
An international symposium, Practice of Conservation in Museums－defining a vision for the practice of conservation in museums in the 21st century－was held on June 2. Last year in late December, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology decided that two independent administrative institutions, the National Museum and the National Research Institute for Cultural Properties, should be integrated in April 2007. The decision was made mainly because of deficit financing and administrative reform. Under the circumstances, the Tokyo National Museum organized this symposium to advocate conservation activities of great significance and promote further cooperation among museums, art museums, libraries, etc.
Masakazu Kuba from the NDL spoke on the present state and future prospects of the preservation and conservation activities of NDL and PAC Tokyo.
Pre-conference
The pre-conference was held on August 16-17 at NDL under the theme of Preservation and Conservation in Asia. The meeting was sponsored by IFLA Preservation and Conservation Section, Asia and Oceania Section, IFLA/PAC Core Activity and NDL. There were 397participants in total. The first session “Preservation issues in Asia” was opened on the 16th with a speech of welcome by Nancy Gwinn, Chair of the Preservation and Conservation Section. Prominent experts such as John Dean from the U.S., Rujaya Abhakorn from Thailand and O.P. Agrawal from India presented problems and prospects of preservation activities in Southeast and South Asia. Yukiko Saito, Director of PAC Tokyo, also presented the preservation cooperation activities in Nepal. The theme of the second session was “Microfilming and digitization of documentary heritage in Asia”. Christiane Baryla, Director of PAC Paris, introduced IFLA/PAC Core Activities. Then Li Chunming of the National Library of China and Colin Webb, Director of PAC Canberra, reported on the current status and future prospect of microfilming and digitizing in each country.
English full papers are available from the website of PAC Tokyo.
Exhibition
NDL enrolled in the exhibition at the WLIC venue in Seoul.
At the NDL booth, preservation activities as well as digital library services were demonstrated. To promote preservation awareness, we prepared three panels- ‘Japanese traditional mending method’, ‘phased preservation’ and ‘use of acid-free paper’. Conservation instruments such as brushes, Japanese papers and phased boxes were also displayed.
(3) The Library Fair & Forum 2006
The Library Fair & Forum is a very big event in the library world in Japan. We made panels and a pamphlet of our preservation activities and distributed them to raise awareness of preservation issues in the Library Fair & Forum 2006 held in November 20-22.
4. Expertise and standardization
Masakazu Kuba, Assistant Director of the Preservation Division, NDL, visited the University of Maryland (UM) Libraries in February. He provided the staff with technical assistance for digitizing over 8,000 volumes of the Gordon W. Prange Collection of Japanese children’s books as a collaborative project between NDL and UM Libraries. The project started this summer.
Kiyonobu Isaka, Director of the Preservation Division, made a trip to Nepal in November. He visited Nepal National Library, National Archives, Asa Archives and other related institutions to review the effects of the training program carried out by PAC Tokyo for Nepal in 2003 and 2004. He also gave advice to the staff members of these institutions.
5. Cooperation
(1) The 4th Social Meeting for Experts in Preservation
Yearly, NDL holds social meetings for preservation experts from libraries and other institutions. These meetings promote preservation activities in Japan by exchanging information and sharing knowledge and experience. The fourth meeting, on the theme of condition survey of library collections, was held in January.
(2) Blue shield
Japan signed the Hague Convention on the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict in 1954, but has not ratified it yet. The Japanese government is planning to adopt the 1954 Hague Convention and its Protocols during the regular Diet session next year. Awaiting the adoption, we will publish through the Japan Library Association “A Blue Shield for the Protection of our Endangered Cultural Heritage” (IPI No.4) with the 1954 Hague Convention and its Protocols in Japanese.
6. The field of excellence
(1) Condition survey on library collections
In order to determine the nature and scope of the preservation needs of a particular collection, NDL conducted a condition survey in FY2005-2006. This survey focused on the paper and binding of Japanese book collections published between the 1950s and the 1990s. The result of a random sampling of 400 items from the 1950s-60s was reported at the poster session of the 28th Conference of Japan Society for the Conservation of Cultural Property in June.
The report of the survey will be published early in 2007.
(2) Storage Environment
For integrated pest management (IPM), we took the following approach: we monitored the storages regularly and recorded the presence of insects and pests, set sticky traps, invited a specialist to give a lecture to the staff members, and made a manual for treating infested materials and preventing infestation.
In cooperation with both the Rare Books and Old Materials Division and the Modern Japanese Political Documents Division, we have monitored more closely their storages since October 2006. We will continue for another year.
We have installed dataloggers to monitor the relative humidity and temperature in the storage for rare and older materials since FY2005. Recently we examined the records of humidity and temperature of all the storages in the Tokyo main building and exchanged information with the Facilities Management Division.
We have been gradually replacing fluorescent lights with new ones covered with UV filtering sleeves.
(3) Disaster Plans
In June, NDL revised the disaster plan on fire and earthquake of the Tokyo main buildings. The new disaster plan includes how to protect library collections at risk as well as human life and facilities. We are preparing disaster measures for library collections step by step. We made a manual on salvaging materials from water leakage and purchased emergency equipment. Inviting an expert, we held a workshop on treating water-damaged materials in December and tested our manual.
(4) Hearings from specialists
In order to improve their knowledge and skills, the Preservation Division has held yearly hearings from specialists on preservation issues. This year, hearings were held on the following themes: stability of the toner in terms of preserving reproductions; preservation administration; and paper conservation education.
7. Others
(1) Research on preservation of digital information
NDL published “The Long-term Accessibility of Packaged Digital Publications” (NDL Research Report, No.6) in Japanese and English. This is a summary of studies conducted in FY 2003 and 2004. The Japanese version is available on the NDL website. The survey of FY2003 showed that all 50 sampled music CDs, acquired between 1982 and 1991, could be played on the newest players. However, of 200 samples FD and CD-ROM acquired up to 1999, almost 70% could hardly be read on PCs with the latest operating systems. The result of the next year’s survey on the CD-ROMs acquired up to 1999 was also shocking. It showed that the emulation software used in this survey was valid for only about 30% of 100 samples. Migration, using the program on the market, could be done on over 350 samples without major problems. At this point, migration seems more effective than emulation. However, the long-term availability of the migration program is uncertain.
In September, NDL started another five-year research plan on long-term accessibility of digital information. The results of these studies will be utilized for developing an NDL digital archiving system which will run in 2009.
(2) Preservation reformatting
In March, the Preservation Division made the next three-year plan, covering FY2006-2008, for preservation microfilming of the library collections. Preservation microfilming of pre-war Japanese books will finish by the end of FY2008.
In November, the Digital Information Planning Office also made a three-year plan, covering FY2006-2008, for digitizing our collections. An integrated preservation reformatting plan will be considered from FY2009 onward.
