National Diet Library Newsletter
No. 183, June 2012
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NDL website renewed: overview of the improvements
Digital Information Department
Digital Information Distribution Division
This article is a translation of the article in Japanese of the same title
in NDL Monthly Bulletin No. 612 (March 2012). Related article NDL NL no.182.
<<New NDL website top page (http://www.ndl.go.jp/en/index.html)>>
The new NDL website was launched on February 23, 2012. The last renewal was in April 2007, five years ago, and the services of the NDL have changed greatly since then. The website has been redesigned to make a variety of information more usable and accessible, such as digital contents, catalogs and index databases, Diet (parliament)-related information and user guide, etc. The major improvements are as follows:
Access to various services
Search box of the NDL Search (A) is placed on the top page for easy search of NDL collections and digital contents. Almost all the pages of the website now have a search box (B), with which users can select either Site Search or NDL Search, making the NDL Search available from any page.
In addition, banners (C) of major online services are also placed on the top page for easy access.
Library calendar
Library calendar (D) showing the opening days of the library is placed on the top page. Information of the Tokyo Main Library, the Kansai-kan and the International Library of Children’s Literature can be found by clicking appropriate tabs.
Web accessibility
Web accessibility was improved based on JIS X 8341-3 :2010 and WCAG2.0. Giving consideration to color combination and reading-out service using a voice browser as before, we stopped using the pull-down menu and made the website operational only with a keyboard.
Site search
To make information more easily findable, we adopted Google custom search (B).
Visit our website and experience the improvements!
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