The newly built “Fisheries Science Library and Museum Complex” on the Hakodate campus is a new educational facility that serves as an advanced archives in addition to its functions as a museum and a library. Prior to its opening on October 1, 2024, the inauguration ceremony was held on September 29, 2024, and was attended by approximately 80 guests.
At the ceremony, Hokkaido University President Kiyohiro Houkin delivered the opening address. After expressing his gratitude to all those involved, he introduced the three functions of the facility: Museum, Library, and Archive, and added that the facility is also fully equipped to connect with the community. After the ceremony, the attendees also took a short tour of the new facility.
The Fisheries Science Library and Museum Complex is a three-story building. The first floor is where students and community members interact, learn, and share information. The hall where the ceremony took place is a multipurpose hall that accommodates various events. The Complex also has a wet lab equipped with a microfocus X-ray machine to inspect minuscule objects. Through the large glass windows, visitors to the facility can clearly see students and researchers performing experiments.
The second floor houses the library, with reading rooms and stacks. The library can accommodate up to 140,000 books, with approximately 20,000 lined up in the reading room. Several study spaces in the reading room face windows from which users can even see Mt. Hakodate on a clear day.
The third floor is the Fisheries Science Center, a branch of The Hokkaido University Museum. Typically, storage rooms in museums are closed to the public. However, at this museum, the storage room is an open area for visitors with a “storage exhibition” format.
The museum on the third floor (exhibition and storage rooms) is currently undergoing the installation of exhibits and is scheduled to open to the public in April 2025.
Upon entering this building, the first thing that catches visitors’ eyes is the display of the life-sized skeleton of a Bryde’s whale in the outdoor space next to the entrance. The 15-meter-long skeleton was originally displayed inside the former exhibition room of the museum. When it was moved to the Fisheries Science Library and Museum Complex, it was decided to install it outdoors.
According to Assistant Professor Fumito Tashiro (Fisheries Science Center, The Hokkaido University Museum) who was in charge of the installation, the skeleton was arranged to withstand the outdoor environment. ‟If the skeleton is placed outdoors without any measures, it will weather and probably not last more than a few years. Therefore, we protected and reinforced the bones with acrylic resin. It took a month to wash all the bones and about two more months to protect them with resin. In order to ensure adequate protection, we took a two-step process in which we first soaked the inner sides of the bones with resin and then proceeded to coat the outer sides,” said Tashiro.
‟Students were also involved in this project. As members of the university undertook the arduous work, we can maintain the specimens to some extent by our own hands in the future. In addition, the mission of the university museum is to nurture future museum workers. From this point of view, it was also meaningful for the students to have experienced this work,” added Tashiro.
After the ceremony, Professor Yasuaki Takagi, Dean of the Faculty of Fisheries Sciences, spoke about the future of the facility complex, “I hope that many people outside Hokkaido University will also use the facility, and that it will be a birthplace for new encounters and new things. In particular, I hope it will become a place for students and other young people in Hakodate to meet and engage in activities.”
The Fisheries Science Library and Museum Complex was launched as a new place for education and interaction. Centered on the Hakodate campus, it is expected that the circle of social interaction and exchange surrounding fisheries science will be expanding.