“Through knowledge we prosper”

Enhance our legislative support function by improving services for the National Diet

It is our primary mission to serve the Diet of Japan. So far the NDL has made efforts to meet a wide variety of Diet members' demands. We intend to strengthen our own anticipatory research on national political issues as well as improving our research services provided on request in order to function as “brains for the legislative body.” We will also be active as the “information center for the Diet members.”

Make an exhaustive collection of results of intellectual activities in Japan to preserve them as common resources of the nation

Even though the NDL collects a large volume of materials under the Legal Deposit System, not all publications in Japan are deposited, especially publications not commercially distributed and some reports issued by local governments. We try to gain public understanding that the Legal Deposit System is based on a sublime idea: it enables us to preserve the intellectual assets of Japan for long periods, provide them for all the people and for the activities of future generations, so that we can achieve a high rate of legal deposit. We hope to develop as perfect collections as possible as the last resort for publications in Japan.
It is estimated that the amount of useful information existing not in paper form but only online will increase at an explosive pace. Since such information is also a part of our intellectual assets, it should be preserved for many years and be utilized for new creations. Therefore we consider that the NDL should collect information on the Internet. However the Legal Deposit System under the present National Diet Library Law does not cover it. At the moment we collect websites after obtaining permission on a site by site basis, but, there is a limit and a new legal framework seems to be essential to collect websites. We have just started efforts in order to win public acceptance as the first step.

Provide prompt and precise access or links to information needed by users

Until now the NDL has made efforts to improve our services through, for example, the National Diet Library Online Public Access Catalog (NDL-OPAC) and the Collaborative Reference Database (Japanese only), which developed in cooperation with libraries and other institutions. In the future, we will enhance these services, improve convenience, try to cooperate with various information sources and enrich and upgrade digital library functions, so that people can easily retrieve the information they want.

Seek to provide equally good service to all users regardless of where they are

In the Internet age, we aim at providing services directly to all users across the country just as good as to on-site users. For this goal, it is necessary to carry on a full-scale digitization operation and to solve a host of issues. We intend to steadily make strides forward with this aim.

Offer a variety of appealing services to society and increase NDL’s visibility

Although the NDL has gained trust from the Diet and general users as a result of its solid work, its usefulness has not yet become widely known and it is still far from providing sufficient services to all. In our time libraries need to work on not only providing library materials but also strengthening human creativity by providing people with a variety of information in various means including navigation services to information they need, and creating an opportunity for enrichment of spiritually rich lives.
We intend to be involved in such activities by, for example, producing a public relations magazine which can stimulate many people intellectually and holding lectures on appropriate subjects so that people can better recognize the value of the NDL and make more use of it.

Promote closer cooperation with libraries of various kinds in Japan including public libraries

It is a fact transcending time that local public libraries are most convenient and most familiar for people, even though the NDL has found a new direction to serve the public widely and directly thanks to the present Internet technology. Therefore, in addition to supporting such public libraries, the NDL will deepen mutual cooperation with public, academic and special libraries by building up a closer network to provide each other’s services and to mutually play complementary roles.

Try to share and exchange information by maintaining close relationships with overseas libraries

Such cooperation is needed among not only domestic libraries but also foreign libraries. When determining a measure and enacting a law, the nation should research and investigate sufficiently things such as consistency at the international level in addition to consideration of the domestic situation. Mutual cooperation with parliamentary libraries in each country is essential to obtain information necessary in these cases. As researchers require direct use of foreign libraries, it is ideal that major libraries around the world are linked effectively so that users can feel like accessing and using one library. As the first step to achieving this aim, the National Library of China, the National Library of Korea and the National Diet Library, as libraries in a cultural sphere using Chinese characters, agreed to cooperate to solve such difficult challenges and will launch concrete actions.

Although the above-mentioned challenges are not what we can resolve in a few years, under the conviction that we can achieve them some day by clarifying these objectives, we have made a fresh start for future aims on our 60th anniversary.

The information environment in the network era influences publishing industry and library world: it demands deep thought on what libraries ought to be in the long-range perspective. What I have described here is the entrance of the solution and I would like to carefully study it in future. I ask for your kind understanding and cooperation.

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