The National Library of Congress was established in February, 1948. It is a national library in Japan and the largest public library in China. The museum has a rich collection of constitutional materials, decrees, parliamentary materials, scientific and technological materials, map materials, music materials, ancient books and Asian materials. In 1998, there were 6.88 million books, 15, periodicals and newspapers, 6.12 million microfilms, 43, records, 32, doctoral dissertations and 4, maps. The organization in the library consists of the Central Library, the National Assembly Branch Library, the Ueno Branch Library, the oriental library Branch Library and 35 branch libraries of administrative and judicial departments, with 851 employees.
On February 9, 1948, Japan promulgated the Law of the National Library of Congress, which stipulated that the library should provide the administrative and judicial departments and Japanese nationals with library services as stipulated by law while assisting members of Congress to complete their official duties with the collected books and other materials. Therefore, serving the National Assembly is the primary task of the museum and the focus of the service of the National Assembly Hall.
In order to guarantee the service to the National Assembly organizationally, the National Assembly has set up a special investigation and legislative investigation bureau in accordance with the law, and is equipped with senior experts in various disciplines such as specialized investigators. Its tasks are:
1. According to the requirements, analyze and evaluate the bills pending in the committees of the two houses of Congress and the cases submitted to the Congress by the Cabinet, make suggestions to the committees of the two houses of Congress and provide materials that can be used as the basis for making decisions on these cases.
2. according to the requirements or the requirements that may be put forward in the future, actively collect legislative materials and related materials, classify, analyze, translate and edit them, make indexes, abstracts and reports, and make other preparations. The materials selected and submitted should not be biased by parties and officials, and provide useful information for the two houses, committees and members.
3. At the request of the committee or members, assist the committee and members in drafting bills in the preparatory stage of legislation.
4. On the premise of meeting the needs of the two houses of Congress, committees and members, provide the collected information to the administrative and judicial departments and general readers.
The Bureau of Investigation and Legislative Investigation had five courses and 48 people when it was built. With the continuous expansion of business and the strengthening of the function of serving the Congress, there has been a comprehensive coordination room, 11 special investigation rooms and 14 classes, with more than 13 staff.
In the service for the National Assembly, the National Assembly Hall is centered on the Bureau of Investigation and Legislative Investigation and the branch of the National Assembly, with the cooperation of the whole library. The services provided are mainly legislative investigation services and library services.
Legislative investigation services include entrusted investigation and forecast investigation. Entrusted investigation is to analyze and evaluate bills and cases according to the entrustment and requirements of members of Congress, to investigate political, economic and social issues, domestic and foreign events and various systems, to make an outline of bills, and to provide information services. This kind of investigation occupies a large proportion in the legislative investigation service of the national assembly hall. For example, in 1997, the matters entrusted for investigation focused on political ethics, reorganization of the central provincial offices, guidelines for Japan-US defense cooperation, measures for financial system turmoil and stabilization, industrial structure reform and medical undertakings, and the total number was 29,553, including 2,365 oral replies, 24,47 documents provided (lent, copied, etc.) and 2,787 written replies (investigation reports, etc.).
A predictive survey is a predictive study of matters to be considered by the Congress in the future, and an investigation is conducted in advance. For the daily investigation, make the basic investigation business plan every year and implement it. In 1997, 116 forecast surveys were completed as planned. In the basic investigation business, some important topics are completed by several investigation rooms and classes. For example, the survey on the current situation and prospect of regional and economic exchanges around the Sea of Japan, which began in 1996, is planned to be completed in three years.
When conducting a forecast survey, according to the needs, the Bureau of Investigation and Legislative Investigation held various explanation hearings and invited relevant experts in the society to express their opinions. For example, 15 such meetings were held in 1997. Listening to experts' arguments in a targeted way has become an indispensable and important content in the process of forecasting investigation.
The Bureau of Investigation and Legislative Investigation publishes 1 kinds of documents, and some achievements of the legislative investigation service are published in these publications. There are monthly reference, indefinite periodical investigation and intelligence-issue brief-,bimonthly guide to overseas information and bimonthly foreign legislation, which are distributed to members of Congress, headquarters of political parties and affairs bureaus of both houses. In addition, it also edited the Index of Japanese Laws, the General Index of the Proceedings of the National Assembly, as well as publicity materials and work reference materials.
In order to better carry out the legislative investigation service, the Bureau of Investigation and Legislative Investigation has continuously strengthened the service infrastructure. In addition to the books in the museum, it collects information on legislation, parliament and decrees for investigation. Introduce domestic and foreign databases and commit to systematizing business information. A system for providing parliamentary minutes was developed. In order to enrich the service to Congress, the comprehensive system of congressional consultation was developed in 1996. The system applies the latest information and communication technology to rebuild the investigation business, and electronizes the information needed and predicted in the national political investigation activities. It is planned to use three years to equip machinery and equipment to realize the database of information and the automation from receiving congressional consultation to answering, so as to make the service more efficient and fast.
In order to make it easier for members of Congress to go directly to the library to make use of the collected materials for investigation and research, the National Assembly Hall has set up a special reading room and research room for members of Congress. The 3-seat Parliamentarians' Reading Room contains the minutes of meetings of the Senate and the House of Representatives, minutes of committee meetings, bulletins, official newspapers, laws and regulations and other parliamentary and legislative materials. Various reference books, maps, periodicals, newspapers, publications of our library, etc. Books written by parliamentarians are also displayed here as a library of parliamentarians' works for reading. In 1997, 258 members used the reading room, read 2,661 books, and lent 884 books to 212 members.
There are 2 individual research rooms, 3 colleagues research rooms and 1 special research room in the Parliamentarian Research Room. In 1997, there were 1,56 parliamentarians who used the research room.
In addition to providing legislative investigation services, all departments in the National Pavilion provide extensive library services such as literature reading, lending, copying and reference consultation for members of Congress and relevant personnel of Congress. In 1999, for example, the museum completed 29,656 commissioned investigations (including 28,573 commissioned investigations from Congress) and predicted 115 investigations. The library service for members of Congress and members of Congress provided 38,464 books of borrowed materials, 7,91 copies, and 5,339 consultations.
The branch of the National Assembly is located in the National Assembly Hall, so it is in the front line of serving the National Assembly. The museum contains the minutes of meetings of the House of Representatives and the Senate, the minutes of meetings of committees, proposals and other proceedings, as well as ordinary books, various reference books, domestic and foreign periodicals and newspapers with social sciences as the main body. It centers on the materials and latest information that are beneficial to the deliberation of state affairs, and provides library services to members of Congress and relevant personnel of Congress quickly. For the new books, periodicals and newspapers in Tibet, the newly arrived books and a list of newspaper clippings are edited and distributed to parliamentarians and party lounges for easy use. In recent years, due to the variety of changes in the political and social situation, the number of inquiries involving a wide range of issues and the need for immediate answers has increased. In order to meet the demand, the branch libraries of the National Assembly make use of the collection materials, various databases of the National Assembly Hall and external databases to conduct consultation and provide services quickly and accurately. In order to assist the administrative, judicial and other government agencies to complete their official duties, NDL provides library services to these departments. It is mainly completed through 35 branch libraries in provincial offices and the Supreme Court. Centered on the Library Cooperation Department, the Central Library forms a network and cooperates with the branch libraries. At the same time, it also provides direct services to the staff of administrative and judicial departments.
this service is mainly provided through reference consultation, reading of materials and lending. For consultation from administrative and judicial departments, branch libraries sometimes cooperate with the Central Library and other branch libraries according to needs. The central library and branch libraries provide convenience to each other through the interlibrary loan system to meet the demand. In 1999, the utilization of branch libraries was as follows: 165,822 pieces (33 libraries) were consulted, 537,886 people (33 libraries) were read, and 857,537 volumes (24 libraries) were read. This service is conducted in the Central Library, the International Children's Library (formerly Ueno Library) and the branch in oriental library. The service targets include all kinds of libraries, local public organizations, investigation and research institutions, enterprises, etc., academic researchers and other personnel, regardless of nationality, anyone can read in the library and use adults who are over 2 years old. The main readers of the International Children's Library are minors under 18.
according to the regulations of the library, except for members of Congress and members of Congress, the collection materials are not directly lent to individuals, but can only be read in the library, but can be borrowed from NDL through public libraries, university libraries and professional libraries, and indirectly borrowed for use. Some reading places open to general readers have certain restrictions and need to go through special procedures, such as general research room, constitutional reference room, classical reference room, audio-visual reference room, etc.
The library's services for general readers can be divided into those for visitors and those for non-visitors. Its service contents are: providing reading, copying and reference consultation for readers who come to the library, answering telephone or written consultation for those who don't come to the library, lending documents to the library, mailing copied materials, etc. In order to provide services to non-library readers more effectively, NDL-ILL system was used in 1997 for interlibrary loan and accepting requests for copying materials by mail.
according to the statistics of 1999, the central library lent 11,976 books of materials (interlibrary loan), copied 3,557 books of materials accepted by non-library readers by mail or telex, consulted 66,73 books by telephone and consulted 53,371 books in writing.
in p>1999, the library was opened for 232 days, with 419,88 visitors, with an average daily readership of 1,81. There are 53,73 kinds of reading materials provided by library readers, 961,725 kinds provided by periodical cashiers and 416,925 kinds provided by 12 specialized reference rooms. In addition, 298,254 copies of materials and 183,391 consultation answers were made.
since 1975, NDL has been making audio tapes of academic documents, which can be borrowed from the Braille library. In 1981, the National Joint Catalogue of Braille Books and Recorded Books was published. In order to promote the utilization of materials inside and outside the library, dozens of bibliographies, indexes and special catalogues have been compiled.