This section summarizes news on international cooperation such as international conferences attended by NDL staff, and NDL's international exchange activities.

The 3rd Mutual Visit Program between the National Assembly Library (NAL), the National Assembly Research Service (NARS) of Korea and the NDL was held. Ms. Young Sook Ko (Deputy Director, Foreign Law Information Division, Law Library) of NAL, and Mr. Yong Hoon Choi (Head of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs Team) of NARS, visited Japan. Participants gave presentations on "Current situation of the provision and dissemination of parliament-related information to parliamentary members and the people" and "Food safety" and exchanged questions and answers. The report of this program is available in NDL Newsletter No. 181. (For more information on the Mutual Visit Program, see Exchange Activities with Foreign Libraries.)

Ms. Carryl Allardice (Head of Knowledge and Information Management Policy, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, United Kingdom) was invited to the NDL to give a lecture titled "Redefining the Foreign and Commonwealth Office Library and the changing role of the Librarian in government" for the annual meeting between the NDL Librarian and the Directors of the Branch Libraries of Executive and Judicial Agencies.

The 22nd forum on preservation was held in the Tokyo Main Library, under the theme of "Disaster preparedness in China, Korea, Australia and Japan: reports from National Libraries." Libraries from four countries, China, Korea, Australia and Japan, which acts as IFLA/PAC (Preservation and Conservation) Regional Centre in Asia and Oceania, and also a library from the area affected by the Great East Japan Earthquake, participated in the forum and reported their experience of disaster and prevention. A brief report of the lectures and discussion is available in NDL Newsletter No. 181.

Brunei Darussalam Library Association 25th Anniversary: Regional Conference on Library, Archives and Museums ‘Access & Collaboration: Search & Discovery through Innovative Technologies’ was held in Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei Darussalam. Ms. Yoriko Sato (Director, Library Support Division, Kansai-kan) attended the conference and made a presentation titled "Collaborative Reference Database: Sharing of Reference Knowledge in Japan" (Presentation file of Ms Sato: PDF 974KB)

The ceremony for the 90th Anniversary of the National Library of Mongolia was held in Ulan Bator, Mongolia. Mr. Yukio Ikemoto (Director General of the International Library of Children’s Literature) attended the ceremony as the proxy of Dr. Nagao, Librarian of the NDL.

World Digital Library Partners Meeting was held in Munich, Germany. Mr. Hisayoshi Harada (Senior Librarian, Digital Information Department) attended the meeting.

The 30th Mutual Visit Program between the National Library of China (NLC) and the NDL was held, and Mr. Zhang Zhiqing (Deputy Director-General), Mr. Wang Lei (Deputy Director, Legislative Reference Service Department), Ms. Wang Honglei (Director Assistant, National Center for Preservation and Conservation of Ancient Books), Ms. Long Wei (Department for Digital Resource and Service) and Ms. Wang Wei (Acquisition and Cataloging Section for Oriental Languages, Foreign Languages Acquisition and Cataloging Department) of NLC visited Japan.
Participants gave presentations on such themes as "Efforts for the digital library" and "Recovery from earthquake disasters" and exchanged questions and answers. The report of this program is available in NDL Newsletter No. 180. (For more information on the Mutual Visit Program, see Exchange Activities with Foreign Libraries.)

8th International Conference on Preservation of Digital Objects (iPRES2011) was held in Singapore. Mr. Masaki Shibata (Senior Librarian, Kansai-kan) attended the conference.

The 14th Mutual Visit Program between the National Library of Korea (NLK) and the NDL was held in the Republic of Korea. Headed by Ms. Michiko Kawanabe (Director, Preservation Division, Acquisitions and Bibliography Department), three delegates visited the NLK and gave presentations and exchanged questions and answers relating to the themes "Policy information support service and cooperation with government libraries" and "Acquisition, preservation and user service of old and rare materials." The report of this year's program is available in NDL Newsletter No. 180. (For more information on the Mutual Visit Program, see Exchange Activities with Foreign Libraries.)

Improving Access to Text (IMPACT) Final Conference 2011 was held in London, United Kingdom. Ms. Miki Matsui (Business, Science and Technology Division, Reader Services and Collections Department) attended the conference.

Mr. Daniel Teruggi (Director of the Research and Experimentation Department, L'Institut national de l'audiovisuel (Ina)) was invited to the NDL to give a lecture "Ina, a unique institution for preservation, access, research, production and training in the audiovisual domain" at the Tokyo Main Library. He also had a discussion session with Mr. Mikio Oji (NHK Enterprises, Inc.) and Dr. Makoto Nagao (Librarian of the NDL). The summary of Mr. Teruggi’s presentation is available in NDL Newsletter No. 181.

The International Conference on "Parliamentary Plenary Session: Organization and Procedure" was held in Hanoi, Vietnam. Mr. Kazuto Yamaguchi (Specialist, Research Planning and Interdisciplinary Research Service, Research and Legislative Reference Bureau) attended the conference. He made a presentation titled "Organizing Legislative Plenary Session in Japanese Diet" (Presentation file: [PDF375KB]).

The Annual Directors' Meeting of ISSN (International Standard Serial Number) Centers was held in Sarajevo, Bosnia Herzegovina. Ms. Rie Masuda (Serials and Non-book Materials Division, Acquisitions and Bibliography Department) participated in the meeting.

Sino-Japan Machine Translation Technology Cooperation Symposium was held in Beijing, China. Dr. Makoto Nagao, Librarian of the NDL, participated in the symposium and made a keynote speech.

International Conference on Dublin Core and Metadata Applications 2011 was held in Hague, The Netherlands under the title of Metadata Harmonization: Bridging Languages of Description. Mr. Ryo Sato (Acquisitions Administration and Bibliographic Control Division, Acquisitions and Bibliography Department) attended the conference.

Mr. Andrew Robb (Special Projects Officer of the Conservation Division at the Library of Congress) was invited to the NDL to give lectures. On September 13, the lecture titled "Recovery of Library Materials from a Major National Disaster" was presented by Mr. Robb in the Tokyo Main Library, NDL. On September 14, an event was organized at Tohoku University in the stricken area of the Great East Japan Earthquake. Mr. Daisuke Sato (Executive Officer of the Network for Preserving Historical Materials) gave a presentation titled "Rescuing historical documents after the 3.11 Great Earthquake: operational activities in Miyagi Prefecture," followed by Mr. Robb’s talk about the emergency recovery of photographs. A brief report of these lectures is available in NDL Newsletter No. 180.

6th International Group of Ex-Libris Users Conference was held at Haifa, Israel. Mr. Kazuo Takehana (Information Systems Division, Administrative Department) attended the conference.

The 22nd Conference of the European Association of Japanese Resource Specialists (EAJRS) was held in Newcastle, United Kingdom. Mr. Kei Okahisa (Assistant Director, Branch Libraries and Cooperation Division, Administrative Department) participated in the conference and gave a presentation titled "Great East Japan Earthquake and Libraries: Clearing up and Providing Support." The script of his presentation is available in NDL Newsletter No. 180.

The World Library and Information Congress 2011, the 77th International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) General Conference and Assembly was held in San Juan, Puerto Rico. The theme of this year was "Libraries beyond libraries: Integration, Innovation and Information for all." Seven NDL staff members participated in the conference, led by Mr. Mitsuaki Amino (Director General of the Acquisitions and Bibliography Department). Mr. Amino also participated in the annual meeting of the Conference of Directors of National Libraries (CDNL) held on August 15, as the proxy of Dr. Nagao, Librarian of the NDL.

The 17th Biennial Conference of the Japanese Studies Association of Australia (JSAA) was held in Melbourne, Australia. Mr. Tsunemasa Okamoto (Digital Library Division, Kansai-kan) attended the conference and made a presentation titled "The Big Leap Into Digitisation" (Presentation file of Mr. Shibata PDF 1.78MB)

The 19th Meeting of the Conference of Directors of National Libraries in Asia and Oceania (CDNLAO) was held in Seoul, Republic of Korea. Mr. Mitsuaki Amino (Director General, Acquisitions and Bibliography Department) was among the 24 delegates from 18 countries who attended the conference and made presentations titled "The Great East Japan Earthquake on March 11"and "China-Japan-Korea Digital Library Initiative and the NDL Search溶ew portal service of the National Diet Library." On May 18, as a related event of the CDNLAO meeting, an open seminar "Leadership, Governance and Policy in National Libraries" was held where Mr. Amino gave a talk titled "The role of the National Diet Library of Japan in developing academic information basis" (Presentation file of Mr. Amino PDF 533KB).

The report of the meeting is available in CDNLAO Newsletter No. 71.

The IIPC General Assembly was held in The Hague, Netherlands. Mr. Masaki Shibata (Senior Librarian, Kansai-kan) attended the assembly and made a presentation titled "Web Archives of devastated area sites & De-Duplication Project & NutchWAX Multilingualization" (Presentation file of Mr. Shibata co-written by Mr. Masayuki Asahara, Assistant Professor, Nara Institute of Science and Technology PDF 1.76MB)

ISO/TC46 Plenary Meeting was held in Sydney, Australia. Ms. Yukiko Uehara (Planning Division, Administrative Department) and Mr. Masahiko Kawai (Acquisitions Administration and Bibliographic Control Division, Acquisitions and Bibliography Department) attended the conference.

Mr. Brewster Kahle, founder of Internet Archive (IA) was invited to the NDL to give a lecture "Universal Access to All Knowledge" at the Tokyo Main Library. He also had a discussion session with Prof. Soichi Tokizane (Professor of Aichi University) and Dr. Makoto Nagao (Librarian of the NDL). A brief report of the lecture and discussion is available in NDL Newsletter No. 178.

The annual meetings of the Association for Asian Studies (AAS) and the Council on East Asian Libraries (CEAL), and the meeting of the North American Coordinating Council on Japanese Library Resources (NCC) were held in Hawai, USA. In the CEAL meeting, Mr. Toshiyasu Oba (Director of the Digital Library Division, Kansai-kan of the National Diet Library) and Mr. Jun Tokita (Assistant Director of the Asian Resources Division, Kansai-kan of the National Diet Library) respectively made presentations titled "China-Japan-Korea Digital Library Initiative and the NDL Search: new portal service of the National Diet Library" (Presentation file of Mr. Oba: PDF 548KB) and "Overview of Chinese and Korean old books in Japan" (Presentation file of Mr. Tokita: PDF 224KB).

The 7th International Congress "Forum Life Science 2011" was held in M・chen, Germany. Mr. Hiroyuki Onda (Business, Science and Technology Division, Reference and Special Collections Department) attended the forum.

Ms. Deborah Novotny, Head of Collection Care at the British Library, was invited as a speaker for a two-day open lecture at the Tokyo Main Library. She gave lectures titled "Preservation and Conservation Activities at the British Library: from original to digital" (Feb. 15) and "Stack Management and storage environment at the British Library" (Feb. 17). A brief report of the lectures and discussion is available in NDL Newsletter No. 177.

International Conference on Digital Libraries and Knowledge Organization (ICDK2011) was held in Haryana, India. Ms. Shiori Oko (Reference Service Planning Division, Reference and Special Collections Department) attended the conference.

The 2nd International Conference of Asian Special Libraries (ICoASL) was held in Tokyo, Japan. Ms. Fumi Saito (Branch Libraries and Cooperation Division, Administrative Department) attended the conference.

The Music Library Association (MLA) 80th Annual Meeting and the Music OCLC Users Group (MOUG) Annual Meeting were held in Philadelphia, USA. Ms. Yuki Kawano (Electronic Resources Division, Public Services Department) attended the meetings.