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Country report. Japan 2004

12th CDNLAO Meeting, 2004

(Back to main CDNLAO meetings page)

The National Diet Library in FY2003

Throughout FY 2003, the NDL continued its efforts to further improve its services, building on what has already been accomplished since the full opening of the International Library of Children’s Literature in May 2002 and the  opening of the Kansai-kan in October 2002.  Three facilities of the NDL, namely, the Tokyo Main Library, the Kansai-kan and the International Library of Children’s Literature, function as a single institution.  The NDL also worked out its “NDL Vision 2004” in January 2004, which confirms its mission and roles and clarifies four priority areas for the years to come as follows: 1) Enhancement of legislative support function, 2) Creation of digital archives, 3) Improvement of access to information resources, and 4) Promotion of cooperation. To give a concrete shape to one of the above-mentioned priority areas “Creation of digital archives,” the NDL formulated the NDL Digital Library Medium Term Plan 2004 and expanded the digital contents it provides through its website.

*Full text of the Vision in English has been available on the NDL website since June 2004. (http://www.ndl.go.jp/en/aboutus/outline.html)

Library Administration

 In Japan the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology is responsible for library administration. The NDL belongs to the legislative branch and  has no power to administrate libraries in Japan, but it has responsibility to assist them by every appropriate means. 

(1) Library Organisational Structure (National Map) (as of 2003)

      (i.e) Number of

Associations

13

Councils

16

Learned societies

11

Study groups, etc.

20

References: Statistics on Libraries in Japan 2003
Directory of Special Libraries, Japan 2003

(2) New Libraries that are being built (av. Annually, how many last FY)

New libraries built in 2002:

Public Libraries

67

Academic Libraries

42

Reference: Library Year Book 2003

Collection Profile

Public Libraries

321,811,000

Academic Libraries

287,271,000

Special/Private Libraries

 Approximately 26,101,000

Government Libraries

Approximately 11,306,000

National Diet Library

7,914,460 (as of March 2002, books only)

References:
Statistics on Libraries in Japan 2003
Directory of Special Libraries, Japan 2003
Annual Report of the National Diet Library (FY2002)

Major collections of the National Diet Library:

Modern Political and Constitutional History
The NDL in its stock has a collection of historical documents helping to trace the development of Japanese modern politics in and after the latter half of the 19th century. Comprising approximately 300,000 items of documents, the collection includes the diaries, letters, draft memorandums and other writings of statesmen (for example, Hirobumi Ito, Sanetomi Sanjo, Tomomi Iwakura), diplomats (Munemitsu Mutsu), military personnel (Makoto Saito, Masatake Terauchi), government administrators, industrialists.

Materials concerning Postwar Occupation of Japan
An NDL collection of records, reports and other materials held by the Allied Occupation Forces after WWII. The mainstay are the some 30 million pages of documents prepared by GHQ and SCAP (General Headquarters and Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers) and held by the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration. Also included are the documents of the Far Eastern Commission and the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey Team. All of the documents in this collection are stored in microfilms.

Laws and Parliamentary Records
In this genre, the NDL has Japan's largest collection consisting of 370,000 items (170,000 Japanese and 200,000 overseas) of Diet proceedings and other parliamentary documents collected from about 70 countries and regions, and official gazettes, statutes, judicial precedents and treaties obtained from about 150 countries and regions.

Science and Technology related
The NDL has acquired and made available about 2.8 million titles in microfilms and 530,000 titles in books and booklets of Publication Board reports, nuclear power reports, foreign doctoral dissertations, academic society proceedings and reports, technical standards, etc.

Map Collection
The NDL has about 400,000 maps of Japan and foreign countries, including Japan's official topographic, geological maps and hydrographic charts produced in the Meiji Period up to the present and topographic maps of foreign countries. In addition, there is a collection of 29,000 residence zone maps.

Musical Materials
As copies of phonographic records produced in Japan are deposited with the NDL, it now has a stock of about 400,000 records.

Foreign Books on Japan
As with the former Imperial Library, one of the NDL's important activities is to collect foreign writings on Japan. Particularly notable in the collection of this genre are the reports on Japan written by the first Christian missionaries who visited Japan during the 16th century.

Rare Books and Old Materials
The stock of the NDL includes the old Japanese writings of the Edo Period or earlier that were inherited from the former Imperial Library. The major collections in the possession of the NDL are:

"The Tokugawa Shogunate Succession Documents"
The mainstay of this 6,000-item collection are the records produced by the Town Magistrates' Offices. Other documents include the records of the Supreme Court of the Shogunate and the Commissioners of Shrines and Temples, and documents on the succession of theTokugawa Shogunate government.

"The Ito Bunko, The Shirai Bunko"
These two collections comprise a combined total of about 8,000 handwritten and block-printed books produced from the Edo to the Meiji Periods on the subject of "honzo" or medicinal herbs.

"The Shinjo Bunko"
This is a collection of 11,000 items of old writings on astronomy and calendars. * The NDLcollection of old Chinese books is particularly noted for its documents of the Ch'ing dynasty era, genealogical records, and local histories.

Reference: National Diet Library website http://www.ndl.go.jp/en/aboutus/outline_7.html

Bibliographies and indexes published by the National Diet Library in FY 2003:

a)Catalog of Books
Book Catalog
Japanese National Bibliography Weekly List (Weekly)
CD-R
JAPAN MARC(M) [Japanese National Bibliography (Books)] (1977-) (Weekly)
CD-ROM
J-BISC [Japanese National Bibliography (Books)] Current Edition (1992-) (6/Y)

b)Catalog of Serials
CD-R
JAPAN MARC(S) [Japanese National Bibliography (Serials)] (2/Y)

c)Japanese Periodicals Index
CD-R
National Diet Library Japanese Periodicals Index CD-R (25/Y)
CD-ROM
National Diet Library Japanese Periodicals Index CD-ROM, Current Edition (2002-) (6/Y)

d)Special Bibliographies
Index to Japanese Laws and Regulations in Force, as of September 1, 2002
NDL CD-ROM Line: National Union Catalog of Braille and Recorded Books (2/Y)

Reference: National Diet Library website http://www.ndl.go.jp/jp/publication/pub_index.html

a) Web-accessible NDL databases and information services:
National Diet Library Online Public Access Catalog (NDL-OPAC)
NDL Asian Language Materials OPAC
Japanese National Bibliography Weekly List
Books on Japan
Database Navigation Service (Dnavi)
Directory of Japanese Scientific Periodicals
Bibliography of Persons in Modern Japanese Politics

Reference: National Diet Library website http://www.ndl.go.jp/en/data/opac.html

b) Union Catalogs managed by the NDL (mainly for public libraries)
National Union Catalog Network
Union Catalog of Newspapers in Japan Database
National Union Catalog of Braille and Recorded Books (included in NDL-OPAC)
ILCL Union Catalog Database of Children's Literature

Reference: National Diet Library website http://www.ndl.go.jp/jp/library/backlist_network.html

c) Services provided by the National Institute of Informatics (mainly for academic libraries):

Article Information
Portal of Research Bulletins: Bibliography and full-text of university bulletins
NACSIS-ELS( Electronic Library Service): Bibliography and full-text for academic journals published by Japanese academic societies

Book Information
Webcat: Catalogs of books and journals held by university libraries
Webcat Plus (Book Information Navigation by NII)

Reference: National Institute of Informatics website http://www.nii.ac.jp/service-e.html

Services

a) NDL has been developing the Collaborative Reference Database System as a three-year trial project, which collects and provides reference inquiries and answers to them provided by the NDL and other libraries in Japan.  The database is accessible to member libraries only.
b) NDL is also developing the Reference Information System that consists of several databases useful for reference services.

Volumes lent out: (as of FY 2002)

Public Libraries

583,734,000

Academic Libraries

29,127,379

Government Libraries *

215,712

National Diet Library

36,693

                   *Statistics of national government libraries only

References: Statistics on Libraries in Japan 2003
Annual Report of the National Diet Library (FY2002)

Provision of the national bibliography
 “Japanese National Bibliography” is available on the NDL website http://www.ndl.go.jp/jp/publication/jnbwl/jnb_top.html. It is published weekly on the Internet and covers books, serials and electronic publications.  In FY 2003, it started to cover maps, audio-visual materials and Asian materials published in Japan.

 (1)The following online catalogs, bibliography and databases are available on the NDL website. http://www.ndl.go.jp/en/index.html

a)NDL-OPAC (National Diet Library Online Public Access Catalog) http://opac.ndl.go.jp/ covers books, serials and newspapers in Japanese and Western languages, Japanese Periodical Index, Japanese doctoral dissertations, digital resources, standards, technical reports, etc. Registered users can request online copying service.

b)NDL Asian Language Materials OPAC http://asiaopac.ndl.go.jp/index_e.html covers Asian books and periodicals.

c)Japanese National Bibliography Weekly List (see “National Bibliographic (Agency) Services”)

d)Books on Japan http://www.ndl.go.jp/en/publication/books_on_japan/boj_top_E.html provides bibliographic information of books on Japan in Western languages processed by the National Diet Library (NDL) in and after 2002 on a quarterly basis.

e)The Directory of Japanese Scientific Periodicals Database covers serials on science and technology edited and published by organizations operating in Japan.

f) Full-Text Database System for the Minutes of the Diet <http://kokkai.ndl.go.jp/> offers search and full-text display of debates in the plenary sessions and committee meetings of both Houses since the 1st session (May, 1947).

g)Rare Books Image Database provides colorful images from the collections of the NDL published mostly in the Edo Period. Image data can be searched and viewed for enjoyment.

h)Digital Library from the Meiji Era is an image database of the books published in the Meiji Period held by the NDL.

i)Electronic Exhibition includes “Rare Books of the National Diet Library”, “Nippon in the World”, “Birth of the Constitution of Japan”, “The Japanese Calendar”, etc.

(2)The NDL is conducting the following  three test projects:

a)Dnavi (Database Navigation Service) help users to find databases on the Internet.

b)WARP (Web Archiving Project) collects and preserves websites and online periodicals on the Internet as cultural heritage.

c)Collaborative Reference Database System collects and provides reference inquiries and answers to them provided by the NDL and other libraries in Japan.  The database is accessible to member libraries only.

NDL holdings are available from overseas through university libraries or other community libraries by the inter-library loan service, provided under some conditions.
The guideline on how to apply for the international loan service is on the NDL website. http://www.ndl.go.jp/en/service/oversea/index.html

The NDL strengthened document supply services for remote users since the opening of the Kansaikan. The number of requests for copying service by mail has doubled since the Japanese

Periodicals Index was made available on the NDL website  in conjunction with the opening of the Kansai-kan.

Since 1975, the NDL has been producing recorded academic literature in DAISY (Digital Audio-based Information System) format based on requests from users via local libraries in Japan and providing it on inter-library loan. In FY2003, 34 titles were newly recorded in DAISY format and 64 titles were converted from cassette tapes to DAISY.

Number of Professional Librarians (as of 2003)

Public Libraries

full-time librarian

7,320

full-time staff

7,608

concurrent librarian

145

concurrent staff

1,222

part-time librarian

3457.9

part-time staff

3,108.3

temporary librarian

2,475.3

temporary staff

3,993.7

Academic Libraries

full-time staff (including librarians)

7,468

concurrent staff (including librarians)

1,389

part-time staff (including librarians)

2,185

temporary staff (including librarians)

2,564

Government Libraries*

full-time staff (including librarians)

148

concurrent staff (including librarians)

88

National Diet Library

full-time staff

**921

*Statistics of national government libraries only 
**Number of staff authorized by national budget

References: Statistics on Libraries in Japan 2003 etc.

Number of schools that have courses for librarians and for teacher librarians: (as of FY2002)

For librarians

14

For teacher librarians

70


R
eference: Library Year Book 2003

Copyright

Others

Progress of measures to promote children’s reading

In response to the Basic Plan for the Promotion of Reading Activities for Children drawn up by the Government in 2002, local governments started to develop concrete plans for promoting such activities. It is expected that all prefectural governments will have drawn up their own plans by the end of FY 2004.

In accordance with the School Library Law amended in 1997, from FY2003, schools that have more than 12 classes are obligated to assign a teacher librarian. After the 5-year preparation period, most schools have reportedly hired one or more teacher librarians in FY2003.

Reference: TOSHOKAN ZASSHI (The Library Journal) Vol. 97 No. 12 (December 2003)