INFORMATION RESOURCES CENTER As a part of ILCAA, the Information Resources Center (irc-TUFS) wasestablished in 1997 with an initial tenure of 10 years. Its main purpose is to process information resources of languages and cultures of Asia and Africamainly in the form of storage, compilation, and publication with a view to develop inter-institutional and international academic exchange. ILCAA has been enriching multipurpose databases of historical, ethnological, and social studies, while computerizing the data of Asian and African languages and analyzing each language phonologically, syntactically and lexicologically. This database provides basic information on editing dictionaries and grammars of Asian and African languages, which is one of the most important activities of the Institute. It is accessible to the scholars throughout Japan. Computerized language data have been collected for several Asian and African languages. With the above mentioned activities as the basis, the Center is planning to organize and refine the theoretical and applied aspects of the following: (a) Besides the language data mentioned above, the Institute has a large number of brochures, posters, photographs, 8-mm films, video tapes etc., containing linguistic, cultural and historical data. Accessing this data is cumbersome from within or from outside the Institute. Hence there is an urgent requirement to organize the data with a view to make it accessible to the public. (b) For encouraging international inter-university studies, we are planning to have the databases internationally open and shared, as well as to set up an environment for research support based on the database. (c) As a preparation for the basic organization of the contents and exchange, it is the urgent task to formalize the fields which have hardly had a theoretical preparation yet, such as coded-character sets, evaluation regarding the theory of diachronic texts, multiple-language processing, collation in multiple-script environment, fundamentals of type-setting and page-description, and so on. Furthermore, it is planned to refine the methods of multiple script data-input, exchange protocols of type-setting etc., and to actively intend to take part in input methods and interface on the multimedia system such as search and access of images, animation, and phonetic abstracts. Here are main open resources, either completed or under construction, since March 2001, the inauguration of IRC. Please visit our site: http://irc.aa.tufs.ac.jp (1) Database of Sanseido The Sanseido Encyclopaedia of Linguistics (2) Theater bills in Ottoman era (3) Database of articles in 'Prospects on academe',"Studies in Japanese Linguistics" (4) Material on tribes in Taiwan included in "ASAI Collection"Other available databases are: Database of Taro in Wailevu, Fiji; Electronic Dictionary of Hindi; Linguistic Questionnaire; Portraits of 19th Century Cairo; Hindi Text Corpora; Database of Tibetan Place and Personal Names. To be meaningful, the achievement of the Center should be open to the world. Thus the Center is planning to have a "Digital Museum of Languages and Cultures". This can be accessed through internet. This Digital Museum of Languages and Cultures not only presents a digital library of linguistic, cultural and historical data but also makes available the theoretical and technical aspects of building such libraries which could be utilized by others in building similar libraries. The Center is to specify the requirement for desired technologies, not to develop technologies themselves. The specification of the technological requirement by researchers' own conception is made only in a research organization which consists of researchers of linguistics, history, anthropology and informatics, and executes studies aiming at the interactive development of technologies and studies, such as IRC.18
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