No. 107, January 1999

50th anniversary of the National Diet Library

June 5, 1998, was the 50th birthday of the National Diet Library. In February 1948, it was founded under the National Diet Library Law, and opened to the public on June 5 of the same year. The library inherited the collections of the Imperial Diet libraries (established in 1890) and of the Imperial Library (established in 1872) to serve the national legislature, executive and judicial branch and the general public. The library planned a series of events celebrating the anniversary and looking forward to the future development of the library. 

Commemorative ceremony

The commemorative events were held on June 8. Although it was the middle of the rainy season, the occasion was favored by fine weather. The Commemorative ceremony started at noon with a speech of welcome by Shin-ichiro Ogata, the Librarian. His speech was followed by greetings from Soichiro Ito, Speaker of the House of Representatives, and Juro Saito, President of the House of Councillors. Ryutaro Hashimoto, Prime Minister, and Shigeru Yamaguchi, Director of the Supreme Court, delivered congratulatory speeches. A congratulatory message from Michio Nagai, Chairman of the Japan Library Association, was read by Hitoshi Kurihara, Chief Director of the Association. 

In these speeches, the guests had high praise for the steady steps taken by the NDL toward the opening of the Kansai-kan and the International Library of Children's Librature, but urged still more effort to bring the digital library project into being. After the ceremony, there was a banquet attended by about 650 distinguished guest, including 150 Diet members. 

Staff ceremony

A staff ceremony was held from three o'clock on the same day. 252 retired staff of the NDL and of the branch libraries in the executive and judicial agencies were invited, and had a pleasant reunion with current library staff at the reception. 

Commemorative publications

On June 1, the NDL published a photograph collection "National Diet Library in pictures: 50 years". It is an omnibus of the Library's 50 years since its foundation, with a text in English and Japanese. The NDL is also planning to publish an official history in two volumes: "Fifty-year history of the National Diet Library" (due to be published by the end of FY1998) and "Fifty-year history of the National Diet Library; documents and records" (due to be published in FY1999). 

Commemorative exhibition

On the same day the commemorative exhibition "Rare books of the National Diet Library" opened at the library. The exhibition features about 100 items from Library's collection of rare books and semi-rare books. 
Selections from the exhibition are available on the next page. 

Commemorative symposium

On June 18, a commemorative symposium "Publishing-related culture and libraries" was held in the lecture hall. The program was divided into three parts: keynote address, reports by four panelists, discussion. Sumpei Kumon, the keynote speaker, spoke of the information society in the context of global cultural history. Over 250 participants attended and the discussion was lively. 

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