Kosaku Oshima
Reference Service Planning Division
Reference and Special Collections Department
National Diet Library, Japan

This is based on the handout for Mr. Oshima’s presentation
at the 19th Annual Conference
of the European Association of Japan Resource Specialists (EAJRS) in September 2008. His presentation slides shown at the conference [PDF Format, 173.61KB] are available .

Four kinds of services are available on the NDL website: 1. User guide; 2. Online catalogs; 3. Search guide; 4. Digital library / online gallery (provision of primary information).

1. "User guide" includes information necessary for use of the library such as the opening hours, access to the library and photocopy fees.
2. "Online catalogs" are for searching materials held by the library.
3. "Search guide*" provides users with information on how to make a good use of what kind of resources to do a document search.
4. Provision of primary information is divided into two categories: Digital library / online gallery). The former service provides particular kinds of materials comprehensively; the latter provides selected materials with comments and descriptions.

*This service will be provided in RESEARCH NAVI, which will be launched in the first half of FY2009.

While we also provide primary information in the services including "Digital Library from the Meiji Era" and "Rare Books Image Database" (Japanese only), this presentation introduces the service of providing selected materials with comments and descriptions: the online gallery.

1. No distance limitation
   Being available on the Internet, it is accessible instantly and from anywhere with an Internet connection.
2. No space limitation
   With no physical limitation of space, free construction and development of contents is possible. Extra exhibits can be added continuously. It is easy to add a large amount of materials after the original release of the contents, or to revise and enlarge the contents.
3. No deterioration of materials on exhibit
   When rare and precious materials are on exhibit, the exhibition term has to be limited to prevent them from deterioration. With an online exhibition, there is no such concern.
4. Broader possibility of display than real exhibition
   When a book is shown in a case, only specific pages are displayed, so visitors cannot read other pages; but online exhibition permits users to see all the pages.

Of course it does not mean that an online exhibition is free from all problems. It has budgetary restrictions and also needs copyright clearance procedures. Daily maintenance is also required.

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Under the general title "Memories of Japan," the NDL online gallery is basically constructed of materials from our collection, selected according to themes related to Japanese history and culture. As the online gallery is intended to introduce our collection, use of other institutions’ materials is restricted to the minimum necessary. It also has a purpose of letting people know about other NDL services, so we attach importance to establishing links to the Digital Library from the Meiji Era and the Rare Books Image Database, etc. Each fiscal year, 2 contents are added.

Targeted users range in general from junior high school students to adults. Our aim is to create an exhibition which can be understandable by viewing the entire content without any deep knowledge of the theme. It can also help researchers and specialists by, for example, providing all the images of one particular material.

Selection of materials to be on exhibit and writing comments and descriptions are done mainly by the division which is responsible for the materials relating to each theme. We outsource creation of the web pages to a contractor.

In FY2007, the number of accesses to the top page of each content of the online gallery was about 533,000 and that to the images, about 17,120,000. This number comes near the number of searches on the NDL-OPAC, our online catalog, through the Internet, which was 17,680,000. Compared with 440,000 accesses for FY2002, the number increased by almost 40 times. The number of accesses per image also shows a 3-fold increase, from 411 in 2004 to 1,258 in 2008.

Analyzing keywords used to access the online gallery for these 17,120,000 accesses, it was found out that accesses by the keyword "Tatewaki Komatsu*" increased considerably after January 2008. Although there were only very few accesses by this keyword until then, the number took third place after "Kokkai Toshokan (Diet Library)" and "Kokuritsu Kokkai Toshokan (National Diet Library)" between February and May 2008. Searching for "Tatewaki Komatsu" on Google, we have the NDL online gallery at the top on the results list. It can be assumed that a popular drama broadcast on TV in Japan with this person as one of the characters had driven up the number of accesses.

*Information and photo of this person is available in online gallery "Portraits of Modern Japanese Historical Figures"

As this example shows, in many cases, people casually search by a keyword to find some information about a particular person and be led to his/her photo on the NDL online gallery. Although some people may not have even known the National Diet Library existed, the online gallery offers a chance to inform them of the library and makes them aware of a part of its usefulness. It is obvious that the online gallery serves as a public relations medium to people who are not the regular type of library users.

In commemoration of its 60th anniversary, the NDL presented a special exhibition "Rare books of the National Diet Library – the 60th anniversary" in October 2008. About 80 rare and precious books were on exhibit and gathered a number of visitors.
*Online version of the exhibition is available from the following page.
Rare books of the National Diet Library – the 60th anniversary

An online exhibition on Japan-Holland interchange in the Edo Era is in preparation to be released in 2009. This is a joint project with the Koninklijke Bibliotheek (National Library of the Netherlands), so the two libraries are now discussing the contents of the exhibition and other matters.

We are also preparing an exhibition on the Japanese migration to Brazil, featuring materials on Japanese migration in our collection.

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