The Fusion of the West's Oldest Printed Material and Digital Technology

2017/02/01

The major in library and information science exists at only a limited number of universities in Japan, and it can be considered one of the distinctive features of the Faculty of Letters at Keio University. It has a long history, being the first in Japan to start university-level education and research in library science, and it is also a field of study that deals with the systematization of information, a major issue in modern society. Within this field, I am continuing my research using digital technology to decipher old manuscripts and printed books, a method unique to the modern era.

The catalyst for this was the HUMI (Humanities Media Interface) project, launched by Keio University on the occasion of its purchase of the Gutenberg Bible, the first printed book in the West, with the aim of digitizing rare books to open up new fields of research. The project aimed to solve mysteries surrounding the books and create new areas of research by digitizing old and rare books, which have many restrictions on their use.

There are 48 surviving sets of the Gutenberg Bible in the world (one set consists of two volumes). While printing is often thought to produce identical copies, in fact, with printed books from around the 17th and 18th centuries, it was common for them to differ slightly because corrections were made during the printing process. Although it was thought that the Gutenberg Bibles, printed in the mid-15th century, were not necessarily identical, it had been impossible to compare them all. I believed that by using digital technology, it would be possible to conduct an accurate and systematic comparison. Specifically, by conducting the world's first thorough comparative study of the Gutenberg Bible using image data, I was able to clarify the printing techniques and work processes of the time, and how people improved the accuracy of printed books. This is truly a fusion of the Gutenberg Bible, the West's oldest printed material, and modern cutting-edge technology—in other words, digital technology.

This can be described as the work of clarifying the relationship between books and people, and between printing and people. Bibliography can also be described as the study of re-examining the nature of books as containers, and the meaning and interpretation of the information recorded therein. This remains true whether the subject is a manuscript, a printed book, or the recently emerged e-book.

My field of research is in the category of bibliography. However, this Major in Library and Information Science is not limited to that; it encompasses various research fields, such as the relationship between information media, including books, and people; the relationship between information and modern society; the systematization and retrieval of information; and the role of libraries as organizations that provide information.

In my research, to handle books from various angles, I sometimes conduct joint research with faculty members from other majors in the Faculty of Letters. Information technology, including computers, is also indispensable. By conducting statistical analysis and obtaining cooperation from experts at the Keio University Faculty of Science and Technology, research that was previously impossible has become feasible. In that sense, it may differ slightly from the general image of a faculty of letters, but I believe that such advanced technology has become essential for the Major in Library and Information Science.

Recently, many books have appeared that exist only in digital form. However, it is unlikely that paper books will disappear immediately just because we have entered the digital age. This is because of the fact that manuscript production was at its peak in the period immediately after the invention of printing in the mid-15th century, and that manuscripts continued to be produced throughout the 16th century. Moreover, attention is once again being drawn to the texture, design, and features that can only be realized with paper books.

Keio University was quick to respond to this era of digitization. As early as the mid-1990s, it started digitizing rare books and applying them to research, and as the only institution in Asia to cooperate with Google Books, it has digitized Japanese books and made them available to the public. Although digitization itself has now become widespread throughout the world, I believe that the digitization of books should proceed with a clear purpose, rather than being carried out indiscriminately.

The field of Library and Information Science will show us one path for thinking about the future information society.