Rare Books and Old Materials Room

Materials held in the room can be reserved in advance for your use except for rare books and semi-rare books. Please make a written reservation not later than noon on the previous working day. In the case of rare books and semi-rare books, you need to submit an application at least six working days in advance. Please see the next section, "To use rare books and semi-rare books."
Advance reservation is required to use the originals on Saturdays. (Advance reservation is not necessary to use microforms and DVDs)

User Registration is required to use materials (originals, microfilmed materials and DVDs).

• Reservation forms are available here. (PDF: 201KB, Japanese only)

Send/fax the form to: Rare Books and Old Materials Room, National Diet Library, 1-10-1
Nagata-cho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 100-8924, JAPAN
FAX: 03-3504-1529

You need to submit an application at least six working days in advance. To use materials which have "Required" in the "Advance application" column on the list of the collections below, please contact us in advance. We will send you an application form.

Contact phone number: 03-3506-5293 ext. 27523

The material(s) requested will be available from about six working days after the day the application has been accepted.
In addition, depending on the condition of the material and the use situation of the library room, we may not be able to comply with your request.

The Rare Books and Old Materials Room possesses about 290,000 books including rare books and semi-rare books, and its collections mainly consist of Japanese old books up to the Edo Period and Chinese old books up to the Qing Dynasty. One of the room's features is the variety of its holdings, including a rich collection of materials from the early modern period. Materials with call numbers listed below are available in the room.