1. Introduction

In October 2002, the Kansai-kan of the National Diet Library opened in the Seika-Nishikizu area of the Kansai Science City, Kyoto prefecture. The National Diet Library (NDL) went through a series of preparatory work for its opening. This article highlights the transfer of library materials from the Tokyo Main Library to the Kansai-kan.

Kansai-kan building

2. Planning of the transfer project for the library materials

(1) Process of the transfer project

The project started in April 2001, when a task force for the preparation for the library materials transfer was established. The task force was composed of staff of the Kansai-kan Project Office, which was set up in 1994 under the Administrative Department, and staff from the nine divisions in charge of the materials to be transferred. The group spent a year developing the operational plan for the library materials transfer. In April 2002, the Headquarters for Library Materials Transfer was established and it led the project from then on.

The schedule made by the task force is shown below. The transfer was scheduled to be performed within the period between the handover of the building (the end of March 2002) and one month before the opening of the Kansai-kan (the beginning of September 2002). Only 100 working days were available.

(2) Number of the materials to be transferred

The Library materials to be transferred to the Kansai-kan were designated in an official document issued in 1996 (revised in 1999 and in 2000). 

To develop the operational plan, we needed to figure out the total number of materials to be transferred. Through hearings with the staff in charge of each collection since May 2001, the figure was confirmed. At the same time, preliminary operations for the transfer were carried out and stack arrangement planning sheets were developed for each collection. 

The materials were packed into 146,507 collapsible containers (53cm x 37cm x 33cm). Japanese books, books in Western languages, part of the materials in Asian languages and doctoral dissertations were packed in cardboard boxes. One collapsible container could hold 22 volumes on average and approximately 3,173,000 volumes were transferred to the Kansai-kan. 

(3) Principles of the transfer

In July 2001, the Operational Plan of the Library Materials Transfer was formulated. The plan employed the following three principles:

• The safety of users, staff and materials is the first priority.
• The period of the transfer operation should be as short as possible; no closed days or suspension of use of the materials not transferred. 
• Persons in charge in the divisions responsible for each collection are held responsible for organizing the materials before the transfer and developing stack arrangement plans in the new building.

Based on these principles, only the West entrance (the entrance of the Tokyo Main Library reserved for staff and contractors' use) was used in order to secure the users' safety and to avoid closing. To minimize the time required, one set of full containers was brought near the exit passage while another set was being loaded on the container car. Packed containers for at least two days' operation were waiting near the entrance. The north part of the adjoining room, the Collection and Delivery Center, was used as a storage area for waiting containers. 

In December 2001, the contractor was selected. Detailed operational plans and manuals for individual work procedures were then developed. The Task Force for the Preparation of the Library Materials Transfer, in cooperation with the contractor, conducted the location survey of the shelves where the materials were to be stacked, work area, and exit passages. 

In developing the operational plan, the unique characteristics of each collection were also considered. For example, microfiches on science and technology were transferred to the Kansai-kan together with the vertical carousel automatic storage where they had been filed. The procedure was:

1. Remove microfiches from the vertical carousel automatic storage, pack them up, and send them to the Kansai-kan.
2. Dismantle the vertical carousel automatic storage and send it to its manufacturer for maintenance.
3. Keep the microfiches in the storeroom pro tem after they arrived in the Kansai-kan. 
4. Bring in the sections of the vertical carousel automatic storage and reassemble them at the Kansai-kan.
5. House the microfiches in the vertical carousel automatic storage.

Serials newly accessioned after the transfer operation started were temporarily stored in the Tokyo Main Library and sent to the Kansai-kan once a month. 

[Stack arrangement planning sheet]
Precise instructions to the contractor were essential to the continued operation of the transfer for more than three months. Detailed written instructions were thus developed and stack arrangement planning sheets were prepared by the persons in charge of each collection. The sheets directed where the materials were to be shelved: which floor, which section, which column, and which level. The accuracy of these planning sheets determined the progress of the operation.

[Stack re-sorting at the Tokyo Main Library]
The transfer operation needed many hands because the time allowed was not long enough. Especially, the operations at the Kansai-kan had to be finished by October 7, 2002, the promised opening day of the library. To improve efficiency, the work had to be simplified so it could be done by rote. The materials were re-sorted to fit the shelves of the Kansai-kan before being sent there, which saved labor in the new facility. Other required procedures included relabeling call numbers and checking the materials against the lists. 

Periodicals in Western languages made up the greatest portion (almost 50%) of the materials transferred. In the Kansai-kan, the periodicals published in and before 2000 and those after 2001 are arranged separately. It is not the case with the Tokyo Main Library, where bound periodicals were separately shelved from those not bound, and re-sorting was needed before the transfer.

Periodicals in Asian languages had been labeled with different call numbers and shelved separately if they had been published in different years. Taking the opportunity of the transfer to the Kansai-kan, periodicals of the same title were organized to have one call number and to be shelved together.

Relabeling

(2) Protection/ Packing/Carrying-out operation

At the end of March 2002, after the handover ceremony of the Kansai-kan, protective cladding was laid out along the carry-in-and-out passages of the Tokyo Main Library and the Kansai-kan. For security reasons, guards and traffic control personnel stood at dangerous spots.

In the last week in March, the transfer started and materials for staff use and office equipment were sent first. In April, a send-off ceremony was held at the Tokyo Main Library and the transfer of library materials launched. In the Kansai-kan, fixtures and other equipment such as desks and PCs were also carried in during that period, so the carrying-in plan of the transferred materials was developed carefully.

Materials in a collapsible container

The materials were packed in collapsible containers and secured by a band inside (some materials were packed in cardboard boxes). Three workers composed a team and shared the work of removing the books from the shelves, packing, fastening the band, and closing the container with a lid. Packed containers were stored in the storeroom overnight, and delivered to the railway station by container car the next day. Trains carried the containers from Tokyo Freight Terminal Station to Umekoji Station in Kyoto every night.

From Umekoji Station, the containers were carried by truck to the Kansai-kan. Only highways and arterial roads were used, not community roads. Special attention was paid to the departure time from Umekouji Station so as not to have trucks waiting on the streets in the Kansai Science City to be unloaded. The trucks entered the Kansai-kan from the consignment hall on the second basement level, from where the containers were brought in the building.

Consignment hall of the Kansai-kan

The carrying-out operation at the Tokyo Main Library and the shelving operation at the Kansai-kan started with labeling shelves according to the stack arrangement planning sheets. Every morning, the persons in charge confirmed the shelves to be completed on that day, and at the end of the day, they went over the work they had done to check if there was any mistake or problem. More than one staff member was involved in this check to make sure any mistakes and problems were resolved at the earliest stage. Automatic stacks were filled earlier than many of the other stacks, for fear of mechanical failure.

NDL staff shelving in the stacks of the Kansai-kan

(4) Regular meeting

NDL staff in charge of the transfer operation and representatives of the contractor met once a week both in the Tokyo Main Library and in the Kansai-kan. At meetings, the weekly progress of the transfer operation was reviewed and the schedule of the next week confirmed. The meeting helped communication with the contractor, but each meeting time was strictly limited to 30 minutes because other preparatory work for the opening was being carried out in parallel. 

At the meetings in the last week of each month, the staff of the contractor who stayed at the Tokyo Main Library joined and shared the whole of the information.

(5) Others

This transfer operation drew considerable media attention because of its scale. The Headquarters for Library Materials Transfer to the Kansai-kan dealt with their requests as part of PR activities within a scope that did not affect the transfer operation.

(6) Follow-up operations

In September 2002, after the transfer was finished, the protective cladding was removed from the Tokyo Main Library and the Kansai-kan. Scratches and damaged parts were duly covered or repaired.
 

 4. Conclusion

When the construction of the Tokyo Main Building was completed in 1961, 2 million library materials of the NDL were transferred to the new building in Nagatacho from the Akasaka Detached Palace (now the Guest Palace) and the Ueno Branch Library, where the NDL had been housed until that time. A transfer of that scale was not common at that time and was described as the "great move of the 20th century".

The transfer this time surpassed that of 42 years ago in the number of materials and the distance; 3.2 million volumes were transferred over approximately 500 kilometers. This huge project may be called the "great move of the 21st century". 

Appendix: Library holdings as of October 2002
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