Guideline for Acquisition of Materials

These Guidelines for Acquisition of Materials, which set forth the purpose and basic direction of collecting materials, were developed in 1993 and have been amended six times since then.

Acquisition of books and other library materials ("materials") as well as information whose contents are equivalent to materials transmitted through the Internet or other advanced information-communications networks ("digital information") will be conducted by developing up-to-date collections and for the purpose of contributing to Article 2 of Chapter 1 of the National Diet Library Law ("the NDL law"). The National Diet Library (NDL) is to acquire a wide range of domestic materials as cultural property and information resources, and also selectively acquire foreign materials and domestic and foreign digital information.

The NDL is to acquire domestic materials which are newly published, publicly available or transmitted as gifts or bequests from issuers or as deposits stipulated in Articles 24 and 25, or records stipulated in Article 25-3 or Article 25-4 of the NDL Law. The NDL is to acquire materials, of which plural copies are needed for use and preservation, by purchase or other methods. Also the NDL will strive to acquire domestic materials which have not been collected by purchase, gift, deposit, microfilming, digitizing and other methods. The NDL is to selectively acquire or utilize domestic digital information which is considered to be necessary or useful for its user services.

The NDL is to selectively acquire or utilize foreign materials and digital information by purchase, international exchange, gift, or other methods. Publications in the following subjects and fields are regarded as especially important. In this case, when there is any digital information which is considered to be necessary or useful for the NDL's user services, its use shall be prioritized.

1. Statutes and parliamentary documents
2. Publications on Japan
3. Reference materials
4. Materials on science and technology
5. Publications of international organizations and foreign governments
6. Children's literature and related materials
7. Asian Materials

The NDL is to collect or utilize materials stipulated in Articles 2 and 3, as well as materials or information which help Diet Members in the performance of their duties, as quickly as possible, regardless of media and kind, etc.

The NDL is to reproduce acquired domestic materials by means of microfilming, digitizing or other methods when it needs to preserve original materials as its collection or needs to utilize them appropriately.

It shall be noted that materials and digital information collected by purchase, gift, and other agreement (except for the materials or information stipulated in Article 4) are to be accumulated as cultural property, preserved as is, be open to the general public in the future, and utilized, if access is limited based on the agreement.

The NDL is to exchange necessary information with various libraries or agencies which hold materials to establish a framework for cooperation in the acquisition of materials.

Policy for Acquisition of Materials are to be developed separately from but in accordance with these guidelines to stipulate selection criteria such as media, kind, scope, language, subject, priority and other necessary items for acquisition of materials and acquisition or use of digital information.

These guidelines are to be reviewed every five years and amended as necessary to appropriately reflect changes in users’ requests and diversification of publications, and developments in printing or information - communications technologies, etc.