Ann Okerson
The Ancient Red Gates of
Yale's global outreach now includes important enhancements
to the University's relations with universities and cultural institutions in
The centerpiece of the trip was a series of meetings at the University
Library and Tokyo
University, with whom Yale is signing a significant memorandum of
understanding for future cooperation.
Hammond and Okerson joined Assistant
Secretary of the University D. George Joseph in meeting with President
Hiroshi Komiyama of Tokyo University and his senior staff to discuss the
reciprocal arrangements for student and faculty exchanges in the coming
years. Further detailed meetings were
held with the University
Librarian and his staff. A highlight
of the visit was a seminar
held on Wednesday, March 14, on the future of the humanities. Joseph and Hammond were joined as speakers by
Professors Christopher Hill (East Asian Languages and Literatures) and Aaron Gerow (Film Studies).
Later in the visit, Hammond and Okerson also visited the library of Waseda University to develop further library contacts. While there, they toured the library, including its spectacular rare books and special collections, as well as the extensive and impressively managed digitization project for rare books (mainly Japanese) carried on in a state of the art laboratory there.
The trip concluded with a visit to Kinokuniya Books, the major supplier of Japanese materials to the Yale Library, with whom the Library is conducting an extensive experiment in outsourced cataloging. Staff of Kinokuniya demonstrated to their visitors a number of Japanese digital library projects, for which they are the primary vendor/supplier, and also the about-to-be-announced Japanese installation of OCLC's NetLibrary. Hammond and Okerson were received and hosted by Kinokuniya's Vice-Chairman, Kimiyoshi Yoshioka, and other lead staff of the company.
