The library of a Japanese cultural institution overseas
A library, run as an App on the OS.
The library of a Japanese cultural institution overseas is moving off the system built for it years ago and onto OS iXanagi. CloudEffects designed a Library App on the OS, activated it for the institution, and is moving the collection onto it. The first step is to carry over what the old system does, exactly as it is. As of October 2026 the move is under way.
Until now
On a system built for one library, this is where it stalled.
The staff were never the problem. A system made for one place, years ago, simply stops growing with it.
A system made for this library only
Registering books, searching them and the in-house search terminal all ran on a system written for this one library. Changing it, or taking it to another place, meant building it again.
No match in the title, no book
Search relied on the words in the record. Type a topic in words other than the title’s, and a book that is on the shelf does not come up.
Almost no descriptions
Titles and authors were in, but almost no book had a description of what it is about. A small library has no time to look each one up and write it.
What the AI understands
First, the AI learns this library.
On the OS, the collection is kept by meaning: what each book is, which shelf it is on, which section it belongs to, and what has happened to it. Once that is set, search and upkeep are made for this library.
What each book is about
Title, author, publisher and description, kept as an English and a Japanese record. The contents are indexed by meaning, so a book can be found in words that are not in its title.
Each copy, and its shelf
Two copies of a book are one book and two copies. Each copy has its shelf position (column, row, place); copies with no position yet can be listed as “not shelved”.
Sections as meaning
The old system’s sections come over unchanged, held as topics of meaning rather than as a classification table.
What happened, kept
Registering, moving to another shelf, showing or hiding on the terminal, withdrawing: each is added as an event, never written over. A withdrawn book is kept, not deleted.
How the move goes
Carry over what works before improving anything.
On the day the new system is announced, nothing that worked yesterday may be missing. So the move comes first, and it loses nothing on the way.
Keep
Every book record from the old system is brought in exactly as it was, before any clean-up. Records that had been deleted are kept as originals too.
Clean
ISBNs with notes or missing digits are tidied. Values that could not be tidied are not thrown away: they keep their original form, marked “could not be tidied”.
Split
Records are split into books and individual copies, and the cover images are copied. Then the number of books the terminal shows is checked against the old system — it matched.
Match
The staff screen follows the old list the staff know: title, author and publisher together in one cell, shelf position, and filters by column, row and place.
Switch
The in-house terminal is set up to move to the new system while keeping its address.
At the staff desk
Fill the blanks from published book data.
Descriptions, covers and missing authors are filled from book data that is openly published, looked up by ISBN. No AI writes them.
Looking up and lining up: the OS. Saving: the staff.
Open
Staff — Open a book’s edit dialog and press “Fill in from public sources”.
Fill
OS — Look up the ISBN in published book data (Open Library, and openBD for books published in Japan) and put the answer only into fields that are empty.
Compare
OS — Where a field already has a value and the source says something else, the source’s value is shown under the field. Nothing is written over.
Save
Staff — Read it, fix what needs fixing, and save. Until then, nothing has changed.
What goes on the OS
What this library puts on the OS.
Apps on the OS
- Library
- Website
- Knowledge
Connected from outside
- Published book data
- Web analytics
Books, copies and shelves live in Library; the in-house search terminal and the introduction pages in Website; the index that finds books by meaning in Knowledge. Published book data and web analytics are connected from outside.
Being tested (as of October 2026) The move is under way. Bringing in the old system’s book records, checking the number of books the terminal shows against the old system (they match), the staff screen, search by meaning, and filling blanks from published book data all run in our development environment. The library itself still runs on the old system today.
This library lends nothing — books are read on site — so lending is not part of the App.
FAQ
What people ask.
The move is built so they are not. The original records are kept as they were, and values that could not be tidied are kept with a mark that says so. The number of books the terminal shows was checked against the old system, and it matched.
No. They come from openly published book data, looked up by ISBN. Only empty fields are filled, existing values are never written over, and the staff decide whether to save.
No. Library is a custom App available on Enterprise plans and above, built so that any business on OS iXanagi can activate it; what belongs to this library is its collection and its settings. Some parts, such as the wording on the terminal screen, are tailored to this library.
First, put on the OS what you already do.
What to put on it becomes clear once your business is in words. You can start that with the AI.