Introduction
The National Diet Library (NDL) has been conducting a user questionnaire survey since FY2003 to get a true picture of how users actually use the NDL, their degree of satisfaction and their needs. The survey conducted in FY2003 extensively covered the on-site users of the Tokyo Main Library, the Kansai-kan of the NDL and the International Library of Children's Literature (ILCL), the users of the NDL's website, and libraries and other related institutions in Japan. In contrast, the survey of FY2004 was focused on "remote users" utilizing our website and copying service by postal mail, since we had not collected enough responses from remote users in the previous year. In FY2005, the survey targeted for on-site users of the Tokyo Main Library, the Kansai-kan and the ILCL was newly conducted. 

In this article, we report the gist of the results of the FY2005 survey.

Table 1: Survey period and the response rate

1. Characteristics of users
1.1 What is your purpose in visiting the NDL? How often do you come?
In the survey of FY2003, a large part of the users of the Kansai-kan and the ILCL visited there for "seeing the facilities" and for the "first time" because both libraries had just opened about a year before. The survey results of FY2005, however, show that, in regard to the purpose of visiting the NDL, frequency of visits and time spent in the NDL, there is a similar tendency between users of the Tokyo Main Library and those of the Kansai-kan, but that those of the ILCL have different characteristics (Figure 1, 2, 3).

In the Tokyo Main Library, although there is no significant change in the survey result compared with FY2003, the number of users visiting for "general research, hobby & cultural interests" increases (36.1%).

In the Kansai-kan, the number of users visiting for "seeing the facilities" decreases (12.7%) while visiting for "academic research" increases (35.5%) compared with FY2003. Also the number of users who visited for the "first time" and users staying there for "less than one hour" decreases (28.1% and 12.8% respectively).

In the ILCL, the number of users visiting for "seeing the facilities," which accounted for nearly 60% in FY2003, decreases (35.4%). Instead "accompanying children" and "for exhibition" increases (19.6% and 19.5% respectively). As to frequency of using the ILCL, although the ratio of users who visited for the "first time" still remains high, i.e., 73% in FY2003 and 65% in FY2005, it decreases slightly. In addition, the periods of time spent in the library are longer than before.

1.2 Which libraries do you use most?
40.5% of the Tokyo Main Library users and 33.3% of the Kansai-kan answered that they used the NDL most frequently. Naturally, the visit frequency of these respondents is high. On the other hand, 72.6% of the ILCL users used prefectural libraries or municipal libraries the most and only 2.6% visited the NDL most (Figure 4).

In addition, many of the Tokyo Main Library and the Kansai-kan users visiting for "business" purposes answered that they used the NDL the most frequently.

Figure 4: The most frequently used library (room)
Note: Totals are over 100% because multiple answers were allowed.

1.3 Do you use the remote access services?
55% of Tokyo Main Library users, 39% of Kansai-kan and 15% of ILCL visited our website for the remote access services. They mainly used the online catalogs. The use rate of the online remote copying service via the Internet (NDL-OPAC) is only 5% (Figure 5). The use rate of the remote access services through the nearest libraries or by postal mail is also extremely low (Figure 6). Putting this result and the survey result of FY2004 together, which shows that users of remote services do not visit the NDL frequently, it is assumed that the on-site users are not the same people as the remote users.

Figure 5: Utilization of remote access services through the NDL website
Note: Totals are over 100% because multiple answers were allowed.

The more frequently users visit the NDL, the more they tend to be registered. More than 60% of the users who visited the NDL more than once a month replied "Yes" to the above question.

Figure 7: Utilization of the registration system