OrganizationInformation Resources Center (IRC)

Information Resources Center (IRC)

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.

Staff (FY2025)

YAMAKOSHI, Yasuhiro (Center Director), ARAKAWA, Shintaro (Deputy Chief of Center), OGURA, Satoshi (Deputy Chief of Center), ADACHI, Mayumi, UETA, Naoki, OGATA, Shirabe, KAWAI, Aya, SAWADA, Hideo, TAKAMATSU, Yoichi, HAYATA, Suzushi (Research Associate)

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.

The results of various activities based on the above activity policy include, for example, electronic dictionaries (e.g., Japanese-English Malayalam dictionary, Kannada-English Japanese dictionary, etc.), multifaceted integrated databases of language and culture (e.g., Northeast Eurasian, Tibetan, etc.), databases of images and video materials (e.g., Ottoman old maps, Asian and African video archives). Many of these databases are now available to the public as online research resources.

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.

Purpose

The Center was established in 1997 by order of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology to accumulate, process, and publish information resources on Asian and African languages and cultures, develop joint research methods using these resources, and promote international academic exchange. Since FY 2009, the Institute has been developing its activities with the aim of further strengthening its collaboration with domestic and foreign researchers for the establishment of research resources and their joint use.

Successive Center Directors

(Academic Year)

YAMAKOSHI, Yasuhiro

2025-present

WATANABE, Honoré

2023-2024

TAKAMATSU, Yoichi

2021-2022

WATANABE, Honoré

2019-2020

HOSHI, Izumi

2017-2018

NAKAYAMA, Toshihide

2013-2016

NAGAHARA, Yoko

2011-2012

MIO, Yuko

2009-2010

KURIHARA, Hirohide

2007-2008

MINEGISHI, Makoto

2004-2006

UCHIBORI, Motomitsu

2003

MACHIDA, Kazuhiko

1999-2002

IKEHATA, Setsuho

1997-1998

Regulations

Japanese version only.

情報資源利用研究センター規程（99.2 KB）

Event Information