"Snow, winter flowers" displayed Nov.18,2004-Jan.18,2005

2. History
Regular exhibitions have been held since June 1981 until today with a five-year intermission from April 1985 to March 1990 during the construction of the Annex building. The periods before and after the intermission can be called Phase I and Phase II. In Phase I (June 1981 - March 1985), 31 exhibitions were held. In this period, since each section in the former Reference and Bibliography Division developed a display in turn, naturally the topic was selected from that section’s specialized field. (See table 2.) 

In the Phase II (April 1990- ), 136 exhibitions have been held up to March 2005. In this phase, a committee was established to develop exhibitions and the exhibitions started to cover wider variety of subjects chosen by the committee members. The duration of one display used to be a month until 1998; this was extended to two months after that. In October 2004 when the Tokyo Main Library was refurbished, we installed new glass cases (each 1500mm x 900 mm x 1050 mm), behind which there is a bulletin board (1740 mm x 5650 mm) for panels to put up commentaries and illustrations related to the display. 

3. Current activities
The secretarial office of the committee is in the Reference Service Planning Division. Apart from the office staff, the committee consists of two or three persons from each department of the Tokyo Main Library. At present, there are 18 members including the head of the committee and 3 secretaries. The committee meets every month. Each display is organized by two of the members, usually from different departments. Although the committee members are replaced from time to time, at least one of the two organizers must have arranged at least one exhibition. At each meeting, the organizers of the next display distribute a list of the materials to be shown and give the basic plan. When the exhibition opening day gets closer, the committee members meet with the actual materials and discuss the purpose and the methods of giving an explanation. The committee develops a better exhibition through exchanging ideas, and especially the organizers for each exhibition make every effort to produce one that will draw attention and will be readily understood. 

Preparation work for the exhibition gives the organizers a lot of opportunities to gain the knowledge and experience valuable for librarians. They study the theme in depth and also examine with the staff of the Preservation Division the technical requirements, to avoid damaging the materials to be displayed; careful attention is paid to copyright in making panels; they should include accurate bibliographic information and the procedures for using the materials if needed in the list of the displayed materials. As many committee members are younger staff with just a few years of library experience, the preparatory investigation naturally gives them a better understanding of the library collections. Members also have the chance to get to know about other departments in the library through interacting with the committee members from different departments. The main objective of putting on the exhibitions is to introduce our collections to library users, but it also has a valuable aspect of training for our library staff. 

For each exhibition, we provide a simple A4-size brochure of approximately 8 pages as a list of displayed materials with bibliographic information and commentary on the theme. The lists of the materials for the exhibitions after 1996 can be seen in the NDL website (Japanese only). The NDL Monthly Bulletin announces the next exhibition and also carries a column about the current exhibition every other month so that those who have little chance to visit the library can get information about what is on exhibition. 

4. Conclusion
Although small in scale, regular exhibitions are favorably received. The exhibition office sometimes receives an enquiry about what is displayed now and detailed questions relating to the subject of the exhibition; some ask for permission to cite part of the commentary in their thesis; we even got an offer to donate a personal collection from a user who saw the exhibition and was impressed by the coverage of the NDL collection. Some users are willing to give us detailed comments every time on the questionnaire placed by the display cases. These regular exhibitions of the NDL are a part of our public relations activities to introduce the myriad holdings of the Library and provide different perspectives on how to use our materials. At the same time, they provide us with a precious opportunity to make contact with users either directly or indirectly, and thus let us realize how users see the NDL's collection and what they expect of us. 

<Table 1:  Recent themes for regular exhibitions>

No. 123	Dec.2, 2002-Jan.31, 2003	Hyakunin isshu (a card game using hundred famous poems)
No. 124	Feb.4- Mar.31, 2003	Impact of Café: its meanings and roles
No. 125	Apr.1-May 30, 2003	Birth of the Imperial Library
No. 126	Jun.2-Jul.31, 2003	Exploring European-style historic architecture in Tokyo
No. 127	Aug.1-Sep.26, 2003	Tsurezure gusa (Essays in Idleness) – in English translation?: Translated Japanese literature
No. 128	Oct.1-Dec.25, 2003	History of ex-libris stamps: Stamps of NDL and their imprints
No. 129	Jan.6-Feb.27, 2004	Products which changed our lives: stories of their early days
No. 130	Mar.1-Apr.30, 2004	Kabuki actors who succeeded to the name of Ichikawa Danjuro
No. 131	May.1-Jun.30, 2004	Imaginary creatures in the records
No. 132	July.1-Aug.31, 2004	Scenes of fireworks
No. 133	Oct.1-Nov.16, 2004	Utopia, the “nowhere”
No. 134	Nov.18, 2004-Jan.18, 2005	Snow, winter flowers
No. 135	Jan.20-Mar.15, 2005	Wartime publications
No. 136	Mar.17-May 17, 2005	Miniature books: a tiny world

<Table 2: Themes for the exhibition in the Phase I (examples)>

No.21	May 26-Jun.21, 1983	Kelmscott Press	General Reference Section
No.22	Jun. 23-Jul.26, 1983	Russian exploration into Inner Asia	Asian & African Material Section
No. 23	Jul.28-Aug.23, 1983	Morning glory in Edo: description of morning glories in Edo era documents	Humanities Section
No. 24	Aug.25-Sep.30, 1983	Space shuttle and Spacelab	Science & Technology Section
No. 25	Nov.10-Dec.24, 1983	Acid paper and deterioration of books	General Reference Section
No. 26	Jan.9-Feb.21, 1984	Books of gadgets and jugglery in Edo and Meiji era	Indexing Section
No. 27	Feb.23-Apr.24, 1984	Political caricatures in the Meiji, Taisho and early Showa eras.	Law & Politics Section
No. 28	Apr.26-Jun.26, 1984	Theories on emancipation of women in Meiji and Taisho eras: Mill, Engels, and Bebel	Economic & Social Affairs Section
No. 29	Jun.28-Sep.25, 1984	Borobudur: centering on initial documents	Asian & African Material Section
No. 30	Nov.12, 1984-Jan.22, 1985	Japanese crested ibis	Science & Technology Section
No. 31	Jan.24-Mar.26, 1985	Old stock and ex-libris of Clan’s school	Humanities Section