Mr. Shin'ichi Suzuki discussed NII's information communication network systems Science Information Network (SINET) and Super SINET, which provide "information life line" for research and education by connecting universities and research institutions all over Japan, and support international academic information network by connecting major overseas research networks worldwide.
Mr. Kazuo Uzawa talked about NII's catalog information service represented by NACSIS-CAT and NACSIS-ILL. The NACSIS-CAT is multi-lingual based; catalog records of Chinese, Korean, and Arabic titles began to be included in the union catalog databases from 2000, 2002 and 2003 respectively. Cataloging of Japanese and Chinese old books was introduced in June 2003. For international inter-library loan, after the successful implementation of Global ILL Framework with OCLC, NII has just begun with Korean libraries with KERIS in November 2004.
Mr. Shigeki Sugita discussed the Institutional Repository project consisting of JuNii, a database of metadata for networked resources which provides a portal for the research results produced at individual universities in Japan, and the experiment of softwares for harvesting metadata with six universities. Those softwares under experiment are DSpace and EPrints, while Chiba University is trying its own.
Ms. Riko Modeki introduced GeNii, NII's new academic contents portal system which will be available from April 2005. A variety of databases currently available through NACSIS-IR and Webcat Plus will be all accessible through GeNii and be automatically connected to full text, when available. GeNii will be available to overseas scholars and institutions by subscription.
Mr. Ikuo Sasakawa of the University of Tokyo Library discussed the development and current situation of the Global ILL Framework (GIF) Project as well as its future perspectives. The GIF Project with North American libraries was launched in April 2002 with non-returnables, while ILL for books has begun in Aug. 2003. Regarding ILL/DD with North American libraries, he noted that cancellation rate in the total statistics for the past three years was remarkably high (45% of total requests from Japanese libraries and 72% of total requests from North American libraries were denied). Also, he noted, the system and cultural difference with ILL between Japan and North America has been noticeable. To resolve these areas, workshops and manuals might be necessary probably for both sides.
Mr. Hitoshi Hayase of Tokyo Gakugei University Library talked about the development of the GIF Project with Korean libraries. A system testing was done in July 2004, and preliminary trial between 5 Korean and 4 Japanese university libraries was conducted between Aug. and September 2004. Actual implementation for ILL/DD with 226 Korean and 60 Japanese libraries has just begun in November 2004 with transaction handled by KERIS agents. That with GIF functionality is scheduled to be introduced in October 2005.
(Handouts prepared by NII are available at
http://www.nii.ac.jp/hrd/HTML/Japan/index.html)
[Prepared by Toshie Marra.]
