The Flow and Current Situation of Cultural Heritage Archives in Japan - Focusing on Digital Archives -

The advances in digital technology are rapidly digitizing the intellectual property of themodern world, and the trends are spreading in all formats, such as video and audio, not just inbooks. Also, the social presence of cultural assets (文化資産) is rapidly changing. Therefore, thekey to obtain answers to challenges related to intellect (知) or cultural creation is the creativesustainability of culture. To achieve this, we have common social perceptions that should takeinto account the three dimensions, that is, the conservation, visualization and the social use(meaning the structuralizing and sharing of information by digital technology.).In the case of Japan, they have produced vast cultural assets during the modern andcontemporary period, and in the early 2000s, the Japanese have actively tried to structuralizesuch cultural assets of the past for future use and advantageous research. This article isassociated with the digitization of the world, as its premise, and analyzes the status of the flowand the problem of Japan s digital archive. I will seek to establish a direction of our policy, anddescribe the policy flow and departmental status and the formal administration for the case ofJapan.Specifically, as for a digital archive policy of the central government agencies, I analyze “DigitalArchive of Intellect,” of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, “Digital Museum of Ministry of EducationCultural Heritage Online,” of the Agency for Cultural Affairs, “National Center for DigitalArchives,” suggested by the Cultural Resources Strategy Conference, and the digital culturalcreation proposal presented by “The general cultural creation agency s Foundation.”For departmental and agency activities in the digital archive, I focus on the agency representingeach area of the digital archives, and explain the example of that area. National Diet Library, theTokyo Museum of Modern Art, the NHK archive, the album archive created by the RecordingIndustry Association of Japan, the archive link between national institutions, and the archive ofuniversities and institutes. And I analyze the implicit problem in promoting Japan s digital archive. I concentrate on thepolicy for digital archives, conservation problems, and issues of use. This analysis will offer asuggestion for a Korean digital archive and the policy for our Intangible Cultural Heritage.