Speaker: OTAKE Haruhiko, Director, Government Data Research Center of Japan http://www.gioss.or.jp/

December 8, 2004

Mr. Otake presented an overview of the government information and publication and its distribution system both in-print and "born digital". Demands for easy access to government information led to the government official plan and policy guidelines for "E-Gov" 2003 which has been implemented and revised since then. The portal is one product of an integrated effort to ensure easy access to information from various government ministries and agencies. Mr. Otake noted two issues related to the government online information: 1) easy access and 2) archiving government documents. The absence of a well-thought organization of the materials makes the access to information hard. Archiving is an other problematic issue since the E-Gov guidelines require the publications and information to be available through the respective agencies web sites for only three years.

[Prepared by Eiichi Ito.]