Help : Reading materials

Tokyo Main Library

You can read materials in a nearby Reading Rooms.
During busy times, browsing materials while seated at a user terminal will inconvenience others who wish to use the user terminal. Please refrain from doing this.

Kansai-kan Library

You can read materials in the Reading Room. You may not read materials in the 4th floor cafeteria.

The collections of the National Diet Library are not to be lent out to any individuals. Please use these materials in the Library.

Tokyo Main Library

Please inquire at the Entrance Counter in either the Main Building or the Annex.

Kansai-kan Library

Please inquire at the Entrance Counter.

Tokyo Main Library

The Library's collections include residential area maps from across the entire country. The age of these holdings varies depending on the region, but the collections includes old maps from the 1960s (the 23 wards of Tokyo) and the 1970s (other regions).
These materials are not available for external lending and cannot be mailed as copies or ordered into the Kansai-kan Library. Please either read these or use the copying services at the Tokyo Main Library.

Kansai-kan Library

The Kansai-kan Library does not have any residential area maps in its collection.

There are old newspapers in the collections; however, some titles are missing from the collections. Many back issues of old newspapers are also missing. These materials are available for reading or copying as microfilm or facsimile editions.

Japanese textbooks have been acquired starting from fiscal year 2002 (fiscal year 2003 for high school textbooks), and these are available in the International Library of Children's Literature. Essentially, the collection does not include any earlier textbooks than this.

Tokyo Main Library

The latest editions of the most common foreign language dictionaries (including regular dictionaries, Chinese character dictionaries, encyclopedias, and English-Japanese dictionaries) are available in the Humanities Room on the 2nd floor of the Tokyo Main Library.
However, older editions and dictionaries for limited specialist fields such as law and economics are housed in the closed stacks or other Special Materials Rooms. Please check NDL Search for details.

Kansai-kan Library

These are available in the General Collections Room.

In order to preserve the original documents, we ask that you read any digitized materials on a digital screen.

Tokyo Main Library

Materials such as CD-ROMs from the Library's collections are available for use only on the equipment in the Special Materials Rooms that houses those materials.

Kansai-kan Library

Materials such as CD-ROMs from the Library's collections are available for use only on the equipment installed in the Reading Room.

The Library cannot give unconditional answers about how long it takes after publishing for materials to be deposited in the Library. For books published in Japan, it generally takes about 40-50 days from deposit to commencement of applications for use in the NDL Search.

There are two main reasons it takes time for materials to become available for use. 1) It can take a while for books to be deposited at the Library after publishing; and 2) it takes a certain amount of time after receiving the book to create its bibliographic data.

Tokyo Main Library

Please return materials to the counter where you borrowed them.

Kansai-kan Library

Please return materials to the counter where you borrowed them. Place the materials on the designated return shelf in the Reading Room.