How to Get Authority Data
Survey Now Open
The National Diet Library, Japan, (NDL) is conducting a survey about the Web NDL Authorities.
The Web NDL Authorities is a service that patrons can use to search and download authority data created by the NDL.
Anyone is welcome to respond to this survey. All feedback is greatly appreciated.
Period: From Sept. 1 to Nov. 30, 2026
※ The survey takes approximately 5 to 10 minutes to complete.
※ Multiple respondents from the same organization are welcome. Individual responses are encouraged, and there is no need to consolidate opinions within your organization.
※ Please note that responses will be analyzed in aggregate, and no individual respondent or response will be identifiable.
What is Authority Data?
Authority data organizes author's names and keywords that help users to search for materials. It is useful to distinguish materials written by different authors with the same name, and to search for materials written by an author who has variant name notation such as "シェイクスピア" and "Shakespeare". Also, users can search date of birth/death of persons, variant names of corporate bodies, synonyms, etc. There are three types of authority data of the National Diet Library.
(1) Name Authority Data: Authority data for author's names or titles (personal names, family names, corporate body names, geographic names, works and uniform titles)
e.g. "夏目漱石 (Natsume, Soseki)", "岩波書店 (Iwanami Shoten)"
(2) Authority Data for Topical Term: Authority data for terms that are the theme of materials
e.g. "個人主義 (Individualism)", "インターネット (Internet)"
(3) Authority Data for Genre/Form Term: Authority data for what a resource is
e.g. "漫画 (Comics (Graphic works))", "児童図書 (Children's books)"
The National Diet Library provides a search service for materials using authority data on Web NDL Authorities.
For more information about our service for finding materials using authority data, please see Searching Materials Using Authority data: Web NDL Authorities Guide.
Services
Web NDL Authorities
Web NDL Authorities offers authority data as Linked Open Data (LOD) on a single interface. Users can search and download authority data, and search for bibliographic data of the NDL Search via Web NDL Authorities.
For detailed information about Web NDL Authorities, please see About Web NDL Authorities (link to Web NDL Authorities).
For more information about our service for finding materials using authority data, please see Searching Materials Using Authority data: Web NDL Authorities Guide.
Functions
- Downloads
Individual authority data file can be downloaded in RDF/XML, RDF/Turtle, or JSON-LD format in the Detailed Information pages. Also, files for batch download are available for the National Diet Library Subject Headings (NDLSH), the National Diet Library Genre/Form Terms (NDLGFT) and the Authority File for Works, which is created and provided by the National Diet Library.
For more details, please refer to Files for Batch Download (link to Web NDL Authorities). - RSS Feed Notifications
Information about new and revised subject headings is available via RSS feed.
For more details, please refer to RSS Feed Notifications of New Subject Headings, etc. (link to Web NDL Authorities). - API for search (SPARQL)
Web NDL Authorities provides an API via SPARQL to download data.
For more details, please refer to the following specifications in English:
JAPAN/MARC Authority Data Weekly Update
Newly cataloged, corrected, or deleted records are updated weekly and available in JAPAN/MARC MARC21 format.
Please refer to JAPAN/MARC Manual and Format for details on the data format and provided elements.
JAPAN/MARC(A)：典拠 (毎週更新) (JAPAN/MARC Authority Data Weekly Update) (in Japanese)