"IBM Develops Full-Text Digitization System for National Diet Library of Japan"

From an IBM Announcement:

The prototype technology, created by IBM Research, allows full-text digitization of Japanese literature to be quickly realized through expansive recognition of Japanese characters and enabling users to collaboratively review and correct language characters, script and structure. Additionally, the full-text digitization system is designed to promote future international collaborations and standardization of libraries around the world.

“Nearly two decades ago in his book Digital Library, Dr. Makoto Nagao, the director of the National Diet Library, shared his vision that digitized and structured electronic books will dramatically change the role of libraries and the way knowledge will be shared and reused in our society,” said Dr. Hironobu Takagi, who led the development of the prototype technology at IBM Research – Tokyo. “Until now, the breadth of the characters and expressions within the Japanese language had posed a series of challenges to massive digitization. In order to enable this transfer of knowledge from print to online, we realized the need for both machine and human intelligence to understand information in every form.”

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