Although Document Archiving is important, Japanese hadn't known the importance for a long time. So, a lot of important Japanese documents are now found out in foreign countries, even though tey were originally made in Japan. One of my jobs is to import such documents, and sell them to my customers. It might be good for my business, but I sometimes feel strange.
I went to listen to the presentation for Prange Collection in the Library Fair. It's a collection of a huge number of Japanese books, magazines and newspapers published soon after WW2. At that time, GHQ governed Japan, and collected all documents published in Japan in order to censor them. After their governance finished, the documents were sent to America and preserved in University of Maryland.
Of course, Japanese theirselves also preserved them, but they have only 5% of the collection now. 95% of them are now in America. Preservation is important.
However, it is not enough only to preserve them. Because the collection is too huge, nobady know what really exists in it. That's why it is very difficult to use the collection. From my experience, I know it is easy to preserve vagetables in my refrigerator, but it is difficult to remember what is in it. Thus, damaged vagetable is sometimes found out to throw it away.
In the presentation, I could know Waseda University is making a digital databese for the collection. It's a very taugh and significant work.
By the way, my computer was broken a few weeks ago, and I knew it was impossible to fix it. Now I am thinking, that I don't have my computer, seve everything on internet sites like Google and use them in Internet Cafe. Is it the good way to archive my documents?????
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