Regine Matthias
Centre Européen d'Etudes Japonaises d'Alsace. Director
In Difficult Waters: Future Challenges for an independent Japan Library: Navigating towards the future
Last year in Sophia, Willy Vande Walle presented the CEEJA Japan Library in Colmar, France.
In our presentation this year, as a follow-up, we will discuss the three issues.
Firstly, we will review the developments since last year and the current situation, which is not 'rosy' due to budget cuts at CEEJA and an increasingly challenging situation for staff. However, we have finished a classification system for the books and are making progress in implementing the technical preconditions for reinstating digital cataloguing.
Secondly, we will discuss the future direction of the library as a private, non-university institution and its potential role in Japanese Studies. The books were originally collected to provide students of Japanese Studies and others with a broad and well-founded knowledge of Japan, its history, society, economy, technology and culture. This policy was intended to allow students to develop their own field of interest and later pursue more in-depth research in these fields. However, given the current situation, this broad approach cannot be maintained. Instead, we must adopt a more focused acquisition policy, and consider what the library's unique selling points could be, such as emphasising our special collections of original sources and other materials for further research.
Thirdly, we have always envisaged the library as not only a collection of books and academic journals, but also as a multimedia, multifaceted institution. Over the years, we have amassed a large collection of various audio-visual media that can be used for further research, education and exhibitions. The question is how this can be classified and made accessible for the use in Japanese Studies and other contexts.
The most pressing task, however, is the creating a digital catalogue to make the collections known and accessible to the public.