No. 113, March 2000

The NDL Bibliographies

Books on Japan in Western Languages
Acquired by the National Diet Library

The National Diet Library, as the sole national library, has been actively collecting materials on Japan published abroad since the time of the Imperial Library, the predecessor of the present library. We acquire materials in English, French, German and Italian by blanket order, and other languages by selective purchase or international exchange. Books in this category now number about 38,500 titles including reports by early Christian missionaries published in the 16th century

Bound Catalogs (up to August 1986)

The Library has published three bound catalogs of books on Japan for the convenience of researchers at home and abroad. The catalogs cover almost all the materials on Japan in Western languages acquired by the National Diet Library up to August 1986.

Catalog of Materials on Japan in Western languages in the National Diet Library formerly in the collection of the Ueno Library, 1872-1960166p., 1966. Contains about 5,000 titles acquired by the former Imperial Library.

Catalog of Materials on Japan in Western languages in the National Diet Library, 1948-1975400p., 1976. Contains about 7,800 titles acquired by the NDL from April 1948 to December 1975.

Catalog of Materials on Japan in Western languages in the National Diet Library 1976-1986331p., 1992. Contains about 4,700 titles acquired by the NDL from January 1976 to August 1986. ISBN 4-314-10072-9. Available from Kinokuniya for 23,981 yen (domestic price).

Current Data (from 1986)

In 1986, the NDL started to build a database of foreign books including books on Japan. The data in this category amount to 21,000 entries as of March 2000. 

This bibliographic information is available abroad in a semi-annual catalog titled "Books on Japan in Western Languages Acquired by the National Diet Library". We distribute "Books on Japan" to 277 foreign institutions in 118 countries including LC, BL, BF, NLA, NLC by international exchange of library materials. 

The catalog is compiled automatically from our database of foreign books. 
Entries are arranged by the National Diet Library Classification number. Each item listed gives the following bibliographic information: call number, title, name of author, place of publication, name of publisher, date of publication, volumes and/or pagination, and other physical details. Author and Title indexes are given at the end of the volume. 

Period		Title	Remarks
1986-1989		National Diet Library Newsletter, special issue: Books on Japan in western languages acquired by the National Diet Library	Published in July 1990  ISSN 0027-9161
1990-1991		List in the National Diet Library Newsletter nos.84-87	ISSN 0027-9161
1992		National Diet Library Newsletter, special issue: Books on Japan in western languages acquired by the National Diet Library	Published in January 1993  ISSN 0027-9161
1993 -Nov.1994		Supplement to the National Diet Library Newsletter nos. 89-94	ISSN 0027-9161
Dec.1994-		Books on Japan in western languages acquired by the National Diet Library	Semi-annual publication  ISSN 1341-4623

On-line Search

The NDL catalog of Foreign Books (from 1986), including the Books on Japan data, is available through the Internet on the NDL Website from March 2000. The database is searchable by title, author, subject term, year of publication, etc.