Development of the Kyoto University Rare Materials Digital Archive

Abstract

In this article, we describe the Kyoto University Rare Materials Digital Archive, which has been officially launched on December 1, 2017. As of January 29, 2019, the digital archive provides 12, 793 titles, including historically important manuscripts, maps, and drawings. The digital archive has been developed to enhance resources for research in humanities, supported by the Open Access promotion project of Kyoto University. The digital archive is compatible with the IIIF (International Image Interoperability Framework), which provides a set of protocols to promote interoperable use of images over different institutions. Exploiting the IIIF, we have launched collaborations with external institutions. In order to understand to which extent the digital archive has been used, we compute the usage statistics using server logs recorded to the digital archive. The usage statistics reveals that the number of accesses to the digital archive has increased since its launch. Almost 60% of accesses come from Japan. Regarding accesses from foreign countries, we see a lot of accesses from China, the United States, and other Asian countries. In terms of influence from collaborations with external institutions, we do not see a significant increase of accesses to materials in the field of these collaborations. In order to promote the use of outcomes of the collaborations, we should reach to researchers and disseminate the outcomes to them.