An Openness of Municipal Digital PR Magazines as a Local History Material

Abstract

The public relations (PR) magazines by local governments are published by almost all local governments in Japan and can be considered as highly important regional materials. While PR magazines in printed form are collected and made available at public libraries in each region, in recent years, with the advance of digitization, PR departments in charge of public relations directly publish them on local government websites, and public libraries are rarely involved in digital versions of PR magazines. Although the National Diet Library WARP archives past digital PR magazines posted on municipal websites, the decision to open municipal websites on the Internet is left to the judgment of each municipality. As a result, citizens cannot view past digital PR magazines on the Internet that have not opened their past homepages to the public. In cooperation with the WARP division of the National Diet Library, further research will be conducted to find ways to make past digital PR magazines more open to the public.

Keywords: local materials, public relations magazine, digitization, openness, municipality, NDL WARP.