October 20, 2022
Waseda University
Keio University
Key Points
The Waseda-Keio Consortium for the Promotion of Digitization of Japanese Books, formed by Waseda and Keio universities, will collaborate with Kinokuniya Company Ltd. to launch an experimental project with five domestic publishers to promote the digitization of Japanese books.
The spread of COVID-19 increased the need to provide e-books to university library users, leading libraries to face challenges with Japanese e-books, such as a lack of content and usage restrictions.
Of the approximately 1,200 titles offered in this project, half are titles that were previously available only to individuals and not to libraries.
The project aims to go beyond the Waseda-Keio consortium to expand the availability and improve the convenience of Japanese e-books for university libraries in Japan, and to build a new subscription model.
The libraries of Waseda University (Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo; President: Aiji Tanaka) and Keio University (Minato-ku, Tokyo; President: Kohei Ito)—namely, the Waseda University Library and the Keio University Media Centers—launched the Waseda-Keio Consortium for the Promotion of Digitization of Japanese Books (hereafter, the Waseda-Keio Consortium) in May 2021. We are pleased to announce that, with Kinokuniya Company Ltd. as a partner, five domestic publishers that support the consortium's mission (Iwanami Shoten, Publishers; Kodansha Ltd.; Kobunsha Co., Ltd.; Shokabo Co., Ltd.; and Nippon Hyoron Sha Co., Ltd.) will begin providing approximately 1,200 titles for a limited period of one and a half years starting in October 2022.
Through dialogue with publishers and by conducting actual usage experiments, the Waseda-Keio Consortium aims to resolve the challenges of Japanese e-books in a way that benefits both libraries and publishers. In addition, the project looks beyond the libraries of Waseda and Keio universities and the five participating domestic publishers to envision the construction of a new subscription model for Japanese e-books for university libraries throughout Japan.
For the full press release, please see below.