National Diet Library Newsletter
No. 181, February 2012
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NDL Search: NDL’s new integrated search service
Digital Information Services Division,
Digital Information Department
This article is based on the article in Japanese of the same title
in NDL Monthly Bulletin No. 604/605 (July/August. 2011).
The National Diet Library (NDL) launched a new integrated retrieval system, NDL Search, into full-scale operation in January 2012. This service enables integrated search of catalogs and digital archives of libraries including the NDL, archives, museums, and academic institutes.
Interface of the NDL Search (English version)
1. What you can search in the NDL Search
The NDL broadly acquires Japanese publications including books, magazines, newspapers, CDs and DVDs based on the legal deposit system. The NDL has been making accurate bibliographic record of them and providing the data on the Internet since 1996 so that the acquired publications can be accessed as need arises. The NDL also makes the Japanese Periodicals Index to enable articles in magazines to be searched from title, author, keywords, etc. As the sole national library, the NDL also provides the National Union Catalog Network (Unicanet) which enables integrated search of Japanese books owned by prefectural and major municipal libraries in Japan since 1998, the Union catalog database of children's literature which enables users to search children’s books and magazines owned by seven organizations in Japan since 2000, and the National Union Catalog of Newspapers in Japan since 2003. The number of digital contents provided is also on the increase. The NDL actively promotes the digitization of its collections to spare the originals from deterioration caused by use and strives to develop better digital library services. The NDL started the full-swing collection of Internet resources offered by public institutions including national government agencies in 2010. It also started to provide the Historical Recordings Collection in 2011.
Meanwhile, catalog databases and digital contents on the Internet are being gradually enhanced not only in libraries but also in archives, museums and academic research institutes. The NDL has been offering the National Diet Library Digital Archive Portal (PORTA), which enables integrated search of Japanese digital contents, since 2007.
Using the NDL Search, a new integrated retrieval service, you can search at once a huge variety of contents in various media including the information mentioned above, regardless of the type of information and holding organization. The search targets are databases of university libraries, special libraries, the National Institute of Informatics, the National Archives of Japan, the National Museum and e-book databases in the private sector, and the databases operated by the NDL such as the NDL Catalog, union catalogs, digital contents, useful reference resources (information on the table of contents, special subject databases, reference examples, etc.), and about 69 million items of bibliographic information gathered from 82 databases as of December 2011. Cross-search of 126 databases is also available. The Unicanet, the Union catalog database of children's literature, the National Union Catalog of Newspapers in Japan and PORTA were integrated into the NDL Search in January 2012.
2. Various search help
The NDL Search offers ingenious services to help find what you need rapidly from the large amounts of information and materials. You can also use the NDL Search through mobile-phones and smart-phones.
Retrieval support function
Natural language search, fuzzy search, search for synonyms and words with similar meanings, prefix and suffix search, etc. are possible. You can also search targeting the table of contents and materials’ text if it contains the text data.
Multilingual translation function
The NDL is building a digital library linked up with China and South Korea in collaboration with the National Library of China and the National Library of Korea. The NDL Search provides translated search function between Japanese, English, Chinese and Korean and shows translated search results, as well as providing interface in each language.
User-friendly display of search results
The NDL Search displays search results grouping similar contents in different media such as books and digital contents. You can choose the one suiting your needs such as books, text data, digital images, etc. from the groups.
Search refinement
The NDL Search shows hints for refining the result (type of material, name of holding library, year of publication, etc) as well as the search result list. You can also refine the search using the related keyword, authority keyword, etc. provided from the search results.
Means of obtaining information
The NDL Search shows you how to access the information and materials if at all possible. Not merely linking to the digital contents, the name of the organization which holds the information and materials is shown on the “View and Loan.” If you register a frequently-accessed library on the setting page, the search results also show whether the library has the title (This function is available on the Japanese page only). You can also jump to the online bookstore’s website. Application for the interlibrary loan (ILL) which has been provided through Unicanet is also available (exclusively for the participants of the National Union Catalog Network Project).
Functions to utilize the search results
The NDL Search provides various functions to utilize the search results; for example, posting them to external services such as Twitter and Hatena Bookmark, and delivering new information and search results with a specific keyword by RSS.
Providing Newly Acquired Books Information
Using the NDL Search, you can search the basic bibliographic information of books published in Japan acquired by the NDL under the legal deposit system, within a few days after deposit. The NDL also offers the basic bibliographic information through the RSS and OAI-PMH* form.
3. Future Development
The NDL Search was formally launched in January 2012. As the login function of the NDL Search and the National Diet Library Online Public Access Catalog (NDL-OPAC) is now unified, you can request remote copying service, etc. from the search results through the NDL-OPAC. The NDL will continually enhance the function in the future based on users’ needs, such as assimilating the new retrieval technology and the fruits of both internal and external proving tests.
NDL Search aspires to be the entrance of abundant knowledge held by academic research institutes across the nation and to make maximal use of the NDL’s information accumulated in the past. We hope you will make use of it.
*Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting
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