(17 Jan 2024) Aiming to offer new discoveries for booklovers, the municipal library system here on Jan. 15 unveiled an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered search service that suggests items when users enter a word or sentence — the first of its kind countrywide. According to the municipal education board, there are a total of approximately 4.09…
(4 Jan 2024) With the December 31, 2023, retirement of Ms. KATAYAMA Nobuko, Mr. YAMAJI Yasushi has been named Deputy Director General of the National Diet Library, effective January 1, 2024. Since joining the National Diet Library in 1989, Mr. Yamaji has served as director general of the Acquisitions and Bibliography Department and, since February…
(18 Dec 2023) The global popularity of Japanese manga has prompted a unique initiative by the Agency for Cultural Affairs of the Japanese government. In a move to bolster awareness and accessibility of manga worldwide, the agency is collaborating with critics from various countries to curate specialized lists for overseas libraries. Good e-Reader has…
(6 Nov 2023) Consciously avoiding the word “disability” in the shelf labeling, the library opted for terms such as “books to consider diversity.” All people experience declines in vision and mobility, to a greater or lesser extent, as they age. The need to make reading barrier-free is, therefore, an issue that concerns everyone. The story…
(12 Oct 2023) Japan Alliance of University Library Consortia for E-Resources (JUSTICE) and Elsevier have established a transformative agreement in a major step forward in advancing global access to Japan’s scholarly publications through open access publishing. The three-year agreement will take effect from 2024 to 2026. The agreement, the largest of its kind to date…
(3 Oct 2023) Moves are spreading in Japan to set up private libraries where each bookshelf is owned by individuals who display books on their hobbies or those that they recommend. Such libraries are helping revitalize local communities by creating a place where people can mingle through events. Around 50 such facilities have been created…
(8 Aug 2023) The NDL Image Bank showcases items from the National Diet Library’s substantial collection of visual materials, including ukiyo-e woodblock prints, books, magazines, and other forms of published media. And the English version is now available here. All the images in the NDL Image Bank are taken from digitized, public-domain content held…
(11 Jul 2023) Japan this month announced new guidelines on the use of Artificial Intelligence in schools and universities with a focus on helping teachers and students understand the characteristics of the technology, while imposing some limits due to fear of copyright infringement, personal information leaks and plagiarism. Students must comprehend the characteristics of AI…
(25 Jun 2023) “Barefoot Gen,” which first appeared in Weekly Shonen Jump in 1973, was adopted by libraries across Japan and became a library staple along with other study-related manga and Osamu Tezuka’s works, according to Emiko Takahashi, director of the Japan Library Association. School libraries began introducing manga in earnest in the 2000s. It…
(28 Jun 2023) As of June 28, 2023, the National Diet Library has added roughly 86,000 items to the National Diet Library Digital Collections, as detailed below. Collection Number of additional items Availability Newspapers 75,700 Only at the NDL Materials on the Allied Occupation of Japan 9,100 Primarily online, partially at the NDL Collections from Other Institutions 1,600…