New Functionality for Digital Libraries: Enhancing discoverability at the National Diet Library

Abstract

The National Diet Library (NDL) is conducting research with the aim of developing next-generation digital libraries. As the result of the research until now, an experimental service called “Next Digital Library” (https://lab.ndl.go.jp/dl/) was opened to public from the NDL Laboratory Web site on March 29, 2019.

The main purpose of the Next Digital Library is to verify the technical effectiveness of its full-text search function, automatic processing using machine learning, and the International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) API.

In this paper, we explain new functionality for the Next Digital Library, namely full-text searches, image retrieval using automatic cutting of illustrations, whitening of digitized materials, automatic generation of table of contents for materials, automatic image processing for display on smartphones, and utilization of IIIF.