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No. 69, November/December 2010

Introduction

The National Diet Library (NDL) began to provide services for people with disabilities in 1975. It was in response to the repeated demands for production of talking books of academic literature which public libraries or Braille libraries, forerunners of talking book services, had difficulty in producing. Thirty-five years have passed since then; the NDL is trying to improve the service thanks to a sea change brought about by digitization of materials.

In this article, we introduce services and activities for people with disabilities conducted by the NDL and explain its efforts to improve them. We hope this article contributes to the improvement in every library of services for people with disabilities.

1. Current picture of services in the NDL for people with disabilities

The NDL provides services to people with disabilities through the front line libraries or institutions as noted below.

1.1 Production of academic talking books

The first service is the production of academic talking books. We focus on the fact that the NDL has a great number of academic books which public libraries or Braille libraries usually do not have, because the NDL collection covers almost all Japanese publications.

The first process of the production of an academic talking book is an application made by a person who has trouble in visual recognition to one of the 337 "intermediaries" (as of the end of September 2010), through which library loan of academic talking books is conducted. Completed talking books are lent to the person who requested through the intermediaries. The time limit of the library loan is two months.

The talking books we produce are based only on academic literature, excluding liberal arts such as novels or poems, textbooks, study guides for examination and books coaching in practical skills such as acupuncture and moxibustion or music. Books on medicine (mainly Oriental Medicine), history field and religion are often requested.

We began to produce talking books from 1975 using cassette tapes at the beginning. From 2002, we have produced digital talking books through the Digital Accessible Information System (DAISY) using CD-ROMs. 42 titles (52 CDs) were produced during the year 2009. Total productions are 2,112 titles of cassette tapes (28,281 tapes), 728 titles of DAISY talking books (794 CDs) as of the end of 2009. Throughout the year 2009, 161 titles of cassette tapes (2,135 tapes) and 289 titles of DAISY talking books (297 CDs) were loaned out.

Shelves for DAISY talking books

1.2 Making National Union Catalog of Braille and Talking Books

The second service is making a national union catalog of Braille and talking books held by public libraries and information facilities for people with visual disabilities. This aims to promote loans between libraries and other institutions in order to maximize the use of Braille and talking books scattered throughout the nation.

Bibliographic data of the Braille and talking books had been available in book form since 1982 with NDL-OPAC becoming available in January 2003. As of the end of September 2010, 243 libraries and institutions are contributing to the National Union Catalog which includes 455,248 bibliographic data.

In addition to this, bibliographic data newly included in the catalog in the last three months are provided on the NDL website, as well as bibliographic data of books for which a member library has started to create a Braille or talking book. This is to meet the needs of users to be updated on the newly created Braille and talking books and to help institutions avoid producing talking books based on the same works.

1.3 Training program for librarians in charge of services for persons with disabilities

Since 2008, the NDL and the Japan Library Association have been co-hosting a training program once every year for librarians in charge of services for persons with disabilities. This program aims at providing opportunities to learn basic knowledge about services for the people with disabilities in libraries to staff of public and university libraries and information facilities for people with visual disabilities.

Training program for librarians in charge of services for persons with disabilities

1.4 Preferential measure concerning loans for the purpose of services for people with disabilities

The NDL loans out its holdings to libraries and related institutions participating in its interlibrary loan service. While the period of loan is for one month and loaned material can be used only in reading rooms by ordinary users, it is possible to use it exceptionally for the purpose of reading services for people with visual disabilities and for production of Braille or talking books. In that case, the period of loan can be extended on request.

1.5 Loan of Braille materials and large print editions to libraries

The NDL collects Braille materials and large print editions as well as general books through the legal deposit system. Like general books, these materials can be loaned out to libraries participating in the NDL inter-library loan service for use in reading rooms. The period of loan should be one month, the same as general books.

2. Considerations toward improvement of services for people with disabilities

With the amendments to the Copyright Act of Japan in 2009, the scope was greatly enlarged for possible use of copyrighted works for services for people with disabilities without obtaining permission from copyright holders. It also became possible to digitize materials acquired by the NDL without obtaining permission from copyright holders.

Concurrently with the new arrangement of the legal environment, digitization of the NDL holdings was decided to be conducted as a two-year project, with a budget for digitization of about 0.9 million volumes provided under supplemental budgets for FY2009 approved in May 2009. As the digitization in this framework has been conducted by creating image data based on an agreement with associations of copyright holders and publishers, the digitized materials are difficult for people with visual disabilities to access. Thus, consideration is currently under way to secure accessibility to the NDL holdings including digitized materials for people with visual disabilities. The action plan, which will be formed at the beginning of FY2011 based on the results of the consideration, will have the basic concept consisting of the following five points:

1. For digitized materials, the NDL will make them available at dedicated terminals after creating full text data;
2. For materials not digitized, the NDL will provide them through the framework of academic talking books introduced in 1.1.1 of this article;
3. For DAISY materials produced by the NDL, the NDL will make them available through the network;
4. Use of materials produced by the NDL and other libraries will be promoted positively;
5. Simultaneous retrieval should be made possible between the National Union Catalog of Braille and Recorded Books introduced in 1.1.2 and the "Sapie Library" created by an association of information facilities for people with visual disabilities.

To achieve the measures presented in the basic concept, however, there are many issues to be solved including establishment of a distribution system, formation of a system for collecting data created by other libraries, ideal workflows for correction of text data and structuration, and registration method for users who receive delivery of materials for people with visual disabilities. The NDL is currently working hard to solve these issues.