I wish you a Happy New Year.

Last year, we held several events to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the National Diet Library. Having set May 25 as the Day of the Legal Deposit System, we started activities to promote understanding of the system in order to collect privately-printed books, publications of local governments, other institutions and business enterprises of several kinds as well as general publications. We hosted the Conference of Directors of National Libraries in Asia and Oceania, with participants from 23 countries, to have discussions on common issues and it was agreed that three issues should be discussed continuously in the future. We also held a China-Korea-Japan meeting, dating from my proposal of the year before last, which gathered delegates from the national libraries of three countries sharing a culture based on Chinese characters, and made substantial progress in a cooperation project.

This year's most important issue for us is a revision of the National Diet Library Law to facilitate collection of web resources, which will cover websites of the national and local governments, national universities, and other public organizations. We need to have in-depth discussions to reach a compromise with publishers and other stakeholders about digitization of publications, and also to strengthen our relationship with public libraries and university libraries. This year will be an important one where, through these undertakings, we will define the future direction of the National Diet Library amidst ongoing informatization.

It will be much appreciated if you would extend continuous support to us in the New Year.

(National Diet Library Monthly Bulletin, No. 574, January 2009)