JIRCAS Photo Archives

A Photohistory of JIRCAS’s overseas research activities

Technical guidance
Installation of a tension meter with Thai collaborator
Survey of habitat conditions
トルコの果物

The slides in this photo archive were created from photographs collected through field surveys and research cooperation in various countries around the world by researchers of JIRCAS and the Tropical Agriculture Research Center (now called the Tropical Agriculture Research Front) of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. These were stored in a slide image information database (TROSIS) [1] in the then Survey Information Division. The slides were later converted to image files and assigned metadata and relevant information to allow everyone to have access to Japan’s international contribution and record of research activities covering 85 countries between the 1970s and 1990s.

To date, JIRCAS has been accumulating and saving a lot of pictures from field surveys and business trips. Slides in past databases were not searchable, thus the challenge was on how these materials can be properly utilized.

In addition to digitizing the slide images to image files, we also retrieved information stored in TROSIS, such as titles, photographers, and country names, as metadata in the digital images. This makes the data easier to manage and search with image-sharing services like Flickr and other commercial applications.

[1] Suzuki Daisuke and Mitsuo Suzuki. “Tropical Agriculture and Forestry Research: Technical Information and Database User Manual.” Tropical Research Data No. 95, September 1993.

To view and use the photos

View the images with Flickr (an online image-hosting service)

In addition to the above link (Flickr), it can also be accessed through the links below. User registration is not required.

The content may be used on condition that the source is properly cited in accordance with the Government of Japan Standard Terms of Use Version 2.0 (compatible with the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY)). Please refer to the “JIRCAS Website Terms of Use” for the terms and conditions of using the content. If the content will be used in printed materials, investigative research, etc., please let JIRCAS know using the inquiry form (optional).

Data Item

The data stored in the slide image information database (TROSIS) is appropriately converted to Exif (metadata or image information).

The country names, regions / places, and contents of the slide were all recorded at the time of filming. The naming method and descriptions at the time of filming may differ from the current method.

Item Name

flickr Exif

Author’s/Creator’s name (Japanese)

Description EXIF:XPAuthor, XMP:Creator

Author’s/Creator’s name (English)

Description  

Affiliation (abbreviation/acronym)

Description  

Date taken: Year and Month (Western calendar)

Date Taken EXIF:DateTimeOriginal, EXIF:CreateDate

Subject/Theme (Japanese)

Description, Tag IPTC:Keywords, IPTC:Category

Title (Japanese)

Title IPTC:Headline

Title (English)

Title IPTC:Headline

Country name (Japanese)

Description, Tag  

Country name (English)

Description, Tag IPTC:Country-PrimaryLocationName

Region/Place (Japanese)

Description, Tag  

Region/Place (English)

Description, Tag IPTC:Province-State

Target area

Description, Tag IPTC:Keywords, IPTC:Category

Keywords (English)

Description, Tag IPTC:Keywords, IPTC:Category

Slide content (Japanese)

Description IPTC:Caption-Abstract
Slide image information database (TROSIS) data
JIRCASphotoarchive_data.xlsx1.25 MB

Photo count per country/region

Country/Region, etc Count  
Afghanistan 3
Africa 1
Asia/Oceania 1
Australia 27
Bangladesh 65
Bolivia 42
Brazil 180
Brunei 79
Burkina Faso 1
Cambodia 6
Canada 2
Chile 97
China 228
Colombia 52
Costa Rica 108
East Africa 1
East Pakistan 24
Ecuador 37
Egypt 39
Ethiopia 168
Fiji 31
France 1
Gambia 18
Germany 1
Great Britain 6
India 483
Indonesia 411
Iran 20
Italy 2
Ivory Coast (Cote d’Ivoire) 17
Japan 748
Kenya 142
Kinabalu (Malaysia) 5
Korea 2
Madagascar 59
Malaysia 1026
Mali 6
Mauritius 14
Mexico 1
Morocco 17
Myanmar 67
Nepal 35
Netherlands 5
New Caledonia (France) 19
Niger 30
Nigeria 49
Pakistan 130
Papua New Guinea 29
Paraguay 13
Peru 860
Philippines 235
Portugal 2
Reunion (France) 5
Senegal 20
Sierra Leone 20
Singapore 10
Solomon 127
South Asia Federation 1
Spain 6
Sri Lanka 249
Sudan 24
Syria 114
Taiwan 9
Tanzania 7
Thailand 3783
Tonga 99
Tunisia 25
Turkey 100
Upper Volta (Ghana) 1
USA 7
Vanuatu 65
Vietnam 149
Western Samoa 76
Zaire 1
Zimbabwe 44

Number of film sheets (slides) produced by decade

Recording years/period Number of sheets/slides
1950-1959 11
1961-1969 321
1970-1979 852
1980-1989 5484
1990-1999 3136
unknown 2612