National Diet Library Newsletter
No. 169, October 2009
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Activity Performance Evaluation of the NDL: Improving Our Service and Management
This article is a translation of the brochure in Japanese of the same title.
The National Diet Library has been striving continuously to improve its service and management since the introduction of Activity Evaluation in FY2004.
In FY2007, a year before its 60th anniversary, the NDL set out the Vision for the NDLs 60th anniversary and before the next FY reviewed Activity Evaluation to replace it with Activity Performance Evaluation. The new assessment framework is intended to enhance a management cycle PLAN - DO - CHECK - ACT and maximize our limited resources to improve services from FY2009 onward.
Priority Objectives -Targeted Improvement of Services-
The Priority Objectives represent mid-term (3-5 years) goals to achieve. See below for the objectives for FY2009, most of which are identical to the FY2008 version with minor modifications. You can refer to the Priority Objectives of FY2008 and their Evaluation on the following webpage.
http://www.ndl.go.jp/en/aboutus/vision_60th.html
| Priority Objectives for FY2009 | Evaluation in FY2008 | |
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| Progress | Achievement | |
| Vision 1: Enhance our legislative support function by improving services for the National Diet | ||
| To strengthen the function as Brains for the legislature See Ref.1 |  |
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| To organize and provide legislative information useful for deliberations of the Diet as a Comprehensive Information Center for Diet Members | |
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| Vision 2: Make an exhaustive collection of results of intellectual activities in Japan to preserve them as common resources of the nation | ||
| To publicize the legal deposit system in order to raise the percentage of domestic publications acquired by the National Diet Library | |
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| To appropriately preserve collected materials and guarantee permanent access to them |  |
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| To promote accumulating, preserving and providing digital information including Internet resources See Ref.2 | |
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| Vision 3: Provide prompt and precise access or links to information needed by users | ||
| To streamline library work and improve convenience of our services and user satisfaction | |
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| To organize information resources inside and outside NDL to provide them effectively | |
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| Vision 4: Seek to provide equally good services to all users regardless of where they are | ||
| To promote digitization of materials to extend the range of original materials available on the Internet See Ref.3 | |
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| To increase degree of user satisfaction of copying services via the Internet | |
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| Vision 5: Offer a variety of appealing services to society and increase NDLs visibility | ||
| Through holding events and exhibitions, to gain more social recognition of NDLs roles and activities See Ref.4 | |
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| Vision 6: Promote closer cooperation with libraries of various kinds in Japan including public libraries | ||
| As well as supporting various libraries in Japan, to enhance coordination and cooperation with them See Ref.5 | |
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| Vision 7: Try to share and exchange information by maintaining close relationships with overseas libraries | ||
| To deepen coordination and cooperation among national libraries in Asia and Oceania See Ref.4 | |
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In FY 2009, we set the following project based on the supplementary budget as a Priority Objective:
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To digitize our materials intensively based on the FY2009 supplementary budget to strengthen the intellectual infrastructure of the Japanese people in an advanced information environment |
| Evaluation grades explained | ||
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| Progress Each project is graded into three ranks according to the extent of progress against our plan for FY2008. |
Achievement Improvement of user services is graded into five ranks according to user response. Criteria for evaluation are whether we have made significant progress, attracted greater use, or created greater user satisfaction. |
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Progress as planned | ◎ Achieved sufficiently |
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Less progress than planned | ◯ Achieved to some extent; |
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No progress | △ Achieved little |
| ✕ Achieved nothing | ||
| − Not due for evaluation | ||
Ref. 1: Providing information to help deliberations of the Diet
The NDL assists the Diet members (DMs) by providing research and information services using the library materials. We offer prompt response to requests from the DMs, but also carry out anticipatory research on prominent topics in anticipation of requests.
In FY2008, we published more than 500 articles to be distributed in various publications and Chosa-no-Mado, the website for the Diet*. Requests for research from the DMs increased over last year to 47,000.
In FY2009, we strive to offer more client-oriented service including briefings with DMs.
*Most of them are also published on the NDLs website.
Ref. 2: Engaging in collecting and preserving Internet information
There is a recent initiative among the national libraries all over the world to collect and preserve the Internet information which is daily lost. The NDL continues collection, accumulation and provision of domestic Internet information based on permission through the WARP (Web Archiving Project) .
FY2008 saw the increase of collectible websites by 700 titles and access of 70,000. In FY2009, we continue to expand collectible websites and reinforce public relations to promote its use.
Lastly, we finally succeeded in getting the National Diet Library Law amended so that the NDL can archive websites hosted by government and government-related without permission. A bill was introduced in the regular session of FY2009 and enacted as the Act for Partially Revising the National Diet Library Law. We will be able to comprehensively collect such information from April 1, 2010.
Ref. 3: Digitizing the collection
The NDL digitizes copyright-cleared materials and publishes them on its webpages such as "Digital Library from the Meiji Era." The Digital Library had more than 100,000 accumulated titles and attracted more than 7 million accesses in FY2008.
At the same time, we replaced microforming with digitization as a means of preservation as well as facilitating use. The year saw the amendment of the copyright law, enabling the NDL to digitize any library materials for the purpose of preservation without permission from copyright holders. The legal change is accompanied with the supplementary budget for digitization.
Capitalizing on this unique opportunity, we intend to carry out a large scale digitization project in FY2009. We also continue from FY2008 the coordination with other institutions to facilitate the use of digitized materials.
Ref. 4: Holding events to commemorate 60th anniversary
The NDL celebrated its 60th anniversary in FY2008. Commemorating the occasion, we held a symposium titled Through knowledge we prosper - New role of the National Diet Library and an exhibition of rare books titled Rare books of the National Diet Library - The 60th anniversary -. The exhibition is also shown in the online gallery on our website.
We also had the honor to host the 16th meeting of the Conference of Directors of National Libraries in Asia and Oceania (CDNLAO) in commemoration of the 60th anniversary. The Conference was attended by the delegates from 23 counties, the largest participation ever, and Dr. Nagao the Librarian of the NDL chaired lively discussions under the theme of "Cooperation in a Knowledge-based Society."
In FY2009, we are planning initiatives to promote reading and cultural activities in preparation for the 2010 National Year of Reading.
Ref. 5: Supporting librarians nationwide
The NDL provides training programs on a variety of themes to support librarians nationwide. They are provided either on-site by getting together applicants or remotely via the Internet.
We carried out 13 types of group training and remote training in FY2008. We also launched a scheme to dispatch instructors to training sessions held by local libraries with 27 reference-related sessions held in FY2008. With all these sessions combined, we catered to a total of 1,800 librarians.
In FY2009, we intend to introduce new themes for remote training and continue to dispatch NDL staff.
User Survey: Incorporating Feedback
The National Diet Library annually conducts user surveys, with on-site users and remote users (e.g. people accessing the website or ordering copying service by mail) researched alternately (e.g. on-site users in FY2007, remote users in FY2008).
The resulting data are analyzed applying the method of customer satisfaction survey employed by the private sector. This helps prioritize the need for service improvement demanded by the users. In the chart below, the elements in the lower right field are services with low customer satisfaction and strong demand for improvement. We have redoubled our efforts to improve them with the result that FY2008 showed a rise of satisfaction degree as seen below.
Hit the following link to see a more detailed account of the surveys.
http://www.ndl.go.jp/en/aboutus/user_surveys.html
Evaluating Performance: Data-based Appraisal
We maintain various statistics to accurately keep track of service use trends and workloads and conduct sampling analysis to record the timeframe for each service such as time taken to receive ordered copy. Such objective data provide the groundwork for the Activity Performance Evaluation and assist in finding problems and making an assessment at the end of a fiscal year.
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