Background

Our main efforts during the five years (2002 - 2006) of the "21st-Century" COE, "Kyoto Art and Entertainment Innovation Research," went into constructing digital archives and assembling databases that focus on the tangible and intangible cultural properties of Kyoto and Japan. We are proud to have achieved some of the best results in the nation, with more than a million items of data already compiled. Our multi-media format digital archives and information technology have greatly enhanced the methods and range of research in the humanities. They are also serving as portals for information exchange and personal exchange, becoming a hub for Japanese studies institutions around the world.

Recently we have seen the emergence of a discipline called Digital Humanities, in which humanities research in the United States and Europe is advancing through digital technology. Digital Humanities (also known as Humanities Computing or Computing in the Humanities), is concerned with using computational techniques; 1) to create databases concerned with documents or artifacts relevant to the humanities. This involves capturing, structuring, documenting, preserving and disseminating such data, 2) to develop generic methodologies to provide new insights into these datasets, and 3) to conduct new scholarship on these databases to increase our understanding of disciplines across the humanities (the definition by Dr. Ian Gregory, http://www.lancs.ac.uk/staff/gregoryi/).

Our 21st-Century COE activities have been fully consistent with this movement. We plan to build on, expand, and systematize our achievements in this Global COE. The study of Japanese culture overseas has strengthened global research networks, but there is a gap between the methods and aims of foreign scholars and those in Japan.We see a pressing need to adopt a global perspective and to promote the development of Japanese scholars whose skills match those of their foreign counterparts.