No. 179, August / October 2011

Japanese books in NDL

Photo1: Stacks for Japanese books in Tokyo Main library (2004)
Many of these were moved to the Kansai-kan after being digitized.

1 Introduction

A critic, Yuzo Tsubouchi, wrote that books written by Tenmin Matsuzaki, a journalist in the Meiji era, which had not been found in the author card catalog of the National Diet Library (NDL) nearly 20 years ago, were found in the online catalog. ¹

Most of the Japanese books are now searchable on the National Diet Library Online Public Access Catalog (NDL-OPAC), but in the past it was necessary to search various types of card catalogs and book-form catalogs separately, depending on books' origins or cataloged dates (not the year of publishing). Those groups of catalogs and collections are called Shima (blocks) and knowing the structure of the "blocks" was a must in an efficient and thorough search for materials.

The items most expected to be in the NDL are publications issued in Japan after the Meiji era. They are preserved for years in the stacks to be available for the future generations. In recent years, however, digitizing Japanese books published after the Meiji period has been promoted so as to balance preservation of originals and use, which makes them accessible from all over the world via the Internet. The history of these Japanese books has not been explained as much as the special collections like "Shirai Bunko" (on herbalism). In this article, the acquisition and the structure of general Japanese books published after the Meiji period are introduced.

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2 Origins of Japanese books in the NDL

The NDL collection consists of publications collected under the legal deposit system established in 1948, and materials once owned by the former Imperial Diet (the House of Peers and the House of Representatives) and the former Ueno Library².

2.1 Collection through the legal deposit system
With the birth of the NDL, a new legal deposit system was built on the National Diet Library Law and publications published in Japan started to be deposited to the Library. However, they were not collected smoothly because of the multiple depository obligations of the day to the CIE (Civil Information and Educational Section) of the GHQ/SCAP, the Newsprint Allocation Bureau³ and elsewhere, in addition to the complex procedures necessary. The NDL's holdings rate for publications up to around 1950 is considered low despite introducing a recompense system for deposited publications and a package depository system as breakthroughs.

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2.2 Materials owned by the former Imperial Diet (the House of Peers and the House of Representatives)
In the Imperial Diet, the secretariats of the House of Peers and the House of Representatives had separately administered their books since 1890, when they had been transferred from the Chamber of Elders. Later the NDL took over the collections previously held in the Imperial Diet and assigned them new call numbers. Now the books owned by the Imperial Diet are mixed in with other general books; their origins cannot be identified unless the original ex-libris stamps are confirmed.

2.3 Materials owned by the former Ueno Library
Materials taken over from the former Ueno Library make up the core of the pre-war book collection of the NDL. The former Ueno Library accepted books which the Home Ministry had gathered to censor, but the Home Ministry's power was limited to mainland Japan. Therefore books published in Taiwan, Korean Peninsula, Kwantung Leased Territory etc., which Imperial Japan controlled until 1945, were acquired mostly by donation. The former Ueno Library's books collected in this way were classified into three grades according to their value. ⁴

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3 History of Japanese books seen through NDL call numbers

Most of Japanese books housed in the NDL are stored in the stacks and arranged in "call number" order. The call number is composed of a classification number, a book number (a number indicating reception order or a code representing a particular author), etc., and each book has a label printed with its call number on its spine and front cover.⁵ These call numbers show the "block" in which the books are contained.

3.1 Collections owned by the former Ueno Library
a. Books received from the 1875 to 1941
Kan-ka (函架) means shelves. This term has been used from the Meiji era in the library community. At the former Ueno Library, call numbers were assigned by the book size and reception order. This was a general measure in large-scale closed stack libraries. This measure was used until 1948 in the former Ueno Library, however re-cataloging was conducted using the Nippon Decimal Classification (NDC) as far back as 1941, as referred to later.⁶

Looking at the labels of the materials of this age, call numbers were mainly composed of two types of numbers: upper part called Kan (函), mainly numbers, and the lower part number Go (号), numbers assigned in reception order. The "Kan" does not usually show contents of subjects of the books, although there are some exceptions.⁷ In some cases of brochures, the first letter representing their subject are used as well as numbers. Kan represented by one katakana, Japanese character, means transcripts of lectures for correspondence courses of universities and professional schools in the Meiji era.

Materials calssified into the second grade and not provided for reading (see note 4) were assigned Kan starting with a Japanese character "特" (toku) by the NDL after World War II, when they were released to the public.

b. Books received from around 1941 to March 1949
At the former Ueno Library, NDC edition5 (NDC (5)) was used for classification from the mid 1948. After consolidation with the NDL, the classification system was coordinated and NDC (6) was applied from mid-1950. Books received after 1941 were re-classified. ⁸At this time, reference books received before 1941 were also selectively re-classified.

Call numbers of this time were constructed with numbers and alphabet letters and a Japanese character "ウ" was added at the end, which shows that they had been stored at the former Ueno Library. Classification numbers of novels, reference books and large- size books start with the letter F for fiction, R for reference book and E for extra large size.⁹

3.2 Books received after the foundation of the NDL
a. Books received from 1948 to 1950
When the NDL was established, the office at Miyakezaka and the former Akasaka Palace were used as temporary offices, and the former Ueno Library was a branch library. On June 24, 1948, an advisory panel of well-informed persons in the library society was held to discuss the classification to be used in cataloging books. In July of the same year, cataloging of Japanese books started and the NDC was used tentatively. In a report of Robert B. Downs, special advisor of GHQ/SCAP and Librarian of the University of Illinois, which had a major impact on the NDL's activities, also recommended the use of NDC.

Books accessioned in this period are called "Akasaka bon" and they have call numbers starting with "a." Call numbers are composed of NDC (5) and reception order numbers.

b. Books received from 1950 to 1968
In July 1950, with the completion of NDC (6), it was decided to be applied in September of the same year. Call numbers are composed of a combination of a classification numbers of the NDC (6), and numbers and letters identifying author, title, edition and others. There are some differences from the collection of the former Ueno Library and the biggest one is that there is no "ウ" at the end.

c. Books received in and after1969
The NDL had been using the NDC as a classification means since its foundation, while a new classification system had been sought for better usability. In 1962, "Kokuritu Kokkai Toshokan bunruihyo: seiji, horitsu, gyosei: yobiban" was published and distributed outside the NDL for opinions. This was the beginning of the National Diet Library Classification (NDLC). From 1963, the classification system was established and gradually applied to each subject. It was applied in 1964 for brief cataloging materials¹⁰ and in 1969 for all Japanese books and it is still used today. Annuals have been treated as periodicals since January 1986, and as books until then.

Call numbers are composed of the NDLC and codes (number or combination of letter and number) which show accession order.

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4 Conclusion

This is the outline of the Japanese books of the NDL. Nowadays, they are available to search on the NDL-OPAC without regard to the accession period.¹¹
I hope this article will be of some help for research and study of the NDL collection.

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¹Yuzo Tsubouchi, "Tambokisha Matsuzaki Tenmin: dai 3-bu (4) Saionji Kinmochi no hiraita Useikai," Chikuma (472), 2010.7, p.44 <NDL call no. Z21-235>

²xThe following is the history of the former Ueno Library. It was first established as the Shojakukan under the control of the Museum Department of the Ministry of Education in 1872. In the following year, the Shojakukan merged with the Bureau of Expositions belonging to the Dajo-kan Seiin (the head of the Imperial governing structure), moved back under the control of the Ministry of Education in 1875 and renamed Tokyo Shojakukan (its materials remained in the Dajo-kan and most of them are now in the Cabinet Library collection of the National Archives of Japan). The Tokyo Shojakukan was abolished in 1877, taken over by the Tokyo-fu (former Japanese prefecture) and opened as Tokyo-fu Shojakukan. It moved back again under the control of the Ministry of Education in 1880 and became the Tokyo Library; united with the Tokyo Educational Museum and relocated into the Ueno Park in 1885; separated from the Museum in 1889; and became the Imperial Library in 1897. In 1947, the Imperial Library was renamed the National Library, closed in March 31, 1949, and combined with the National Diet Library, which had been established in the previous year.

³From September 1948 to July 1, 1949, some books deposited to the Newsprint Allocation Bureau were transferred to the NDL. In 1951, the NDL received a donation when the government decontrolled newsprint.

⁴First grade (甲部): Materials worth using and preserving. They made up the main part of the collection and were provided for reading after being cataloged.
Second grade (乙部): Materials considered to be of little value but preserved tentatively for future re-evaluation. They were not provided for reading in those days.
Third grade (丙部): Materials not worth using nor preserving. They were discarded after being kept for one year.

⁵In principal, the original is not provided for reading if a book has been converted into microfiches or digital images. Some converted copies have a different call number from their original. If a call number starts with 'YD5-H-', remove the 'YD5-H-' and the remaining part is the original one. If starting with 'YDM…,' it is necessary to see the original material's label or information written in the book in the Digital Library from the Meiji Era (http://kindai.ndl.go.jp/index.html), or to search the "National Diet Library Catalog Meiji Period."

⁶However, "subject" are not assigned for bibliographic data of the collection of the former Ueno Library.

⁷Among exceptions, there were some Kan showing subjects such as education-related "Kan."

⁸This situation continued until May 1956 when unified cataloging with the NDL introduced. The collection of the former Ueno Library was transferred to the NDL in 1961.

⁹There was also A for annuals.

¹⁰ Materials such as study books, telephone books, brochures, miniature books and so on.

¹¹However, bibliographic data are not uniform due to the changes of Cataloging Rules. Also multiple copies of a book which have different histories may be catalogued separately and have several call numbers.

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