Eine Bekannte von der Japanologie hat die folgende Nachricht mit der Bitte an mich geschickt mich doch mal umzuh�ren, ob ich nicht vielleicht Leute kenne, die bei der Datenrettung rund um das Erdbeben in Japan behilflich sein k�nnen/wollen. Und ich wiederum hab mir gedacht, da� hier auf der Liste vielleicht jemand Interesse h�tte. :) Beste Gr��e, (Ein anderer) Aaron --------------------- March 28, 2011 A short message from Tohoku: As you know, the Great Tohoku Kanto earthquake recorded M. 9.0 and the number of dead and missing people has already hit over 20,000. The earthquake suddenly took from us a large number of people and friends and also their property and peaceful lives. Many people have been working hard despite the cold, and shortage of food and supplies to prevent more loss, myself included. Allow me to send a message to colleagues in the library, archive, and conservation fields all over the world to tell of what I have been seeing and experiencing here. To begin, I would like to thank everyone all over the world who has been supporting Japan and the Japanese in many ways. It's been about three weeks since the disaster occurred, and food and supplies have gradually been provided and infrastructure including electricity, water, gas, and public transportation has been recovering day by day. On the other hand, I have been seeing a delay in the rescue of information. What made me so sad was that a concrete back-up system and plan to preserve and/or rescue digital components had not been created in Japan and therefore we are currently very much anxious over how much digital information will be lost. While federal and local governments proceeded with creation of digital information, such as e-government, digital libraries, and digital archives, in collaboration with big corporations (Microsoft, Apple, HP), neither government nor corporate could provide a system or guideline to rescue or recover these digital components right away. People were left not knowing how they should treat the water damaged electronic/digital equipment and media. I fully understand that rescuing people is always the first priority. Therefore, many medical shelters were set up right away all over Tohoku. At the same time, I think rescuing this digital information is as important as rescuing lives. There are only a few specialists who have been volunteering to answer people's questions and try to let people know what to do. I would never give up and will continue to recover digital information even though I have to fight with shortages of funds, specialists, facilities, and equipment. I hope we can recover as much information as possible before it's too late. I solicit people to learn the issues of protecting and preserving digital information from this disaster in Japan. Any assistance or help from anywhere in the world would be highly appreciated. Isamu Sakamoto Specialist, JICA rescue team for tsunami disaster in Nangroe Ache Darussalam, Indonesia Paper Conservator philia_kyoto [at] yahoo__co__jp