(30 Jan 2025) At the National Diet Library, we will hold this year’s Reference Cooperative Database (Lefa Cooperative) Business Forum with the theme “What does Generated AI bring to reference services?” How will the development of generated AI-related technologies have an impact on reference services? In this forum, we invite the people of the scammers…
(27 Jan 2025) The Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) and CHORUS have joined forces to support Japan’s move toward a national open access policy, which is set to take effect in April 2025. At the recent Japan Library Fair on November 20, 2024, the organizations hosted the CHORUS/JST Forum, titled “Many Paths to Open Access,” bringing together six expert…
(8 Jan 2025) Why don’t you solve your problems with “word supplements”? A library here has started a “library pharmacy” event, in which books are lent out in a paper bag resembling a medicine envelope according to the “symptoms” of the user, such as “I want to get a supportive push.” The bags are labeled…
(30 Dec 2024) While bookstores are increasingly closing in Japan due to the prevalence of online shopping, some have started to work with libraries for survival. The government plans to support such collaborations by starting a survey in fiscal 2025 from April in response to concerns over the current situation in which libraries own multiple…
(4 Dec 2024) Japan is planning to implement artificial intelligence to police anime and manga pirating websites that the pop-culture powerhouse accuses of costing it billions of dollars in lost revenue every year. There are at least 1,000 websites illegally offering free downloads of Japanese content, mostly its globally renowned manga graphic novels, a group…
(23 Nov 2024) Some public libraries in Japan will trial sales of new books from fiscal 2025 to fill the void caused by a nationwide decline in the number of physical bookstores, industry officials said. The program is aimed at increasing opportunities for people to buy books, particularly the elderly who may be unfamiliar with…
(6 Nov 2024) The National Diet Library and the International Research Institute of Disaster Science at Tohoku University (IRIDeS) [external link] will cosponsor a symposium on the Great East Japan Earthquake Archive to be held on Saturday, January 11, 2025. Interested parties will be able either to attend the event at Tohoku University in Sendai, Miyagi, or to…
(14 Oct 2024) A selection tour was recently held by Chubu Gakuin University & College at a bookstore here, allowing students to choose books for the university’s library collection. About 30 students purchased approximately 200 books including technical ones, novels, and picture books. The budget for the book selection tour, held at Maruzen bookstore’s…
(5 Sep 2024) Japanese university degrees will be taught abroad for the first time with the inauguration this week of the new Malaysia campus of Japan’s University of Tsukuba within the University of Malaya (UM) site in Kuala Lumpur. The Malaysia campus, known as the School of Transdisciplinary Science and Design at the University of…
(Aug 2024) A dedicated manga library operated by a university sits in a district of Chiyoda City, central Tokyo. It boasts a comprehensive collection of manga volumes and valuable resources for researching Japanese manga, with a collection numbering approximately 410,000, one of the largest in the country. We spoke with a member of the library’s…