Information Resources Center

Information Resources Center (IRC)

Contact TEL: +81-(0)42-330-5634 / email: ilcadj1[at]aa.tufs.ac.jp
Please change [at] to @.

Information Resources Center (IRC) is a center within ILCAA to serve and assist the academic community both within Japan and abroad; it is committed to collecting, compiling, storing, and disseminating information resources related to the languages and cultures of Asia and Africa.

1. Activities

IRC conducts its activities in keeping with the following three principles:

I. Publication and dissemination of materials on the languages and cultures of Asia and Africa, and the results of joint research projects: Fundamental to the work of the IRC are the compiling, editing, and digitizing of research materials. Such materials include ILCAA's large collection of brochures, posters, photographs, 8-mm films, and video tapes that contain linguistic and/or cultural information on Asia and Africa. The results of joint research projects at ILCAA are also prepared at IRC for wider dissemination. IRC also assists in editing and disseminating linguistic and cultural material that is in the possession of researchers outside the Institute.
II. Developing international inter-university studies: IRC is committed to promoting international research through sharing resources, such as databases, electronic dictionaries, digital visual-libraries, and through assisting researchers to conduct projects to create such resources.
III. Developing methodology for digitizing research resources and results: IRC aims to develop methodologies for various digitizing techniques, which include coded character sets, multiple-language processing, collation in multiple-script environments, and typesetting and page-description.

Many of the results of the activities at IRC are listed as On-Line Resources for use by scholars and the public.

IRC also holds "IRC Workshops" as part of its reporting activity on on-going projects and their results.

2. Brief history of IRC

IRC was founded in 1997, in compliance with the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT). As ILCAA was designated as an International Research Center in April 2010 by MEXT, IRC is now even more committed to functioning as a center to serve the academic community and to assist in various endeavors by researchers to preserve and disseminate their research results.

3. Successive Heads

(Academic Year)
2013-present	Toshihide NAKAYAMA
2011-2012	Yoko NAGAHARA
2009-2010	Yuko MIO
2007-2008	Hirohide KURIHARA
2004-2006	Makoto MINEGISHI
2003	Motomitsu UCHIBORI
1999-2002	Kazuhiko MACHIDA
1997-1998	Setsuho IKEHATA

4. Members of the Center

Jun’ichi ODA, Masato IIZUKA, Kaori KAWAI, Hideo SAWADA, Yoichi TAKAMATSU, Honoré WATANABE, Izumi HOSHI, Aiko NISHIKIDA, PAROLIN, Gianluca Paolo (ILCAA Research Staff); Michihisa UMEKAWA, Kuninori MATSUDA (Research Fellow)