The NDL Digital Collections enables a user to search and view a variety of resources, collected and stored by the National Diet Library of Japan.
| Access restrictions | Material covered by the access restriction | How to see the text |
| Available Online | Materials for which it has been confirmed that copyright protection has expired or for which all rights are cleared.
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You can see the content from anywhere that you can use the Internet. |
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| Available only at the NDL and partner libraries | Materials which are difficult to buy on the market due to reasons such as being out-of-print, and whose copyright has not expired, whose rights are yet to be confirmed, or which do not fall within the scope of our copyright confirmation*. *We have confirmed the copyrights of books published before WW II, publications by government offices after WW II, etc. |
You have to visit the premises of the NDL or one of its partner libraries in Japan. Please ask the partner library how to use the Digitized Contents Transmission Service for Libraries in advance, before you visit.
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| Available only at the NDL | Materials which are not covered by the above two access restrictions. | You have to come to the premises at the NDL. |
For optimal performance the NDL recommends the following:
The materials that are currently provided via the NDL Digital Collections are as follows:
Digitized versions of analog materials (paper materials, analog records, etc.) held by the NDL or its partner institutions are available.
| Collection | Number of items *1 | List of titles | Contents |
| Books | 970,000 items (350,000 items) |
Free Data Service: Bibliographic Data of the National Diet Library Digital Collections | This collection contains mainly following materials
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| Periodicals | 1,330,000 items (10,000 items) |
Free Data Service: Bibliographic Data of the National Diet Library Digital Collections | This collection includes digitized periodicals and those for children held by the NDL. |
| Rare Books and Old Materials | 90,000 items (70,000 items) |
Free Data Service: Bibliographic Data of the National Diet Library Digital Collections | This collection includes Japanese materials created before the end of the Edo period (1868) and Chinese materials created before the end of the Qing dynasty, including materials designated as rare books and semi-rare books. There are some materials and images with commentaries or transcriptions.
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| Doctoral Dissertations | (1) 140,000 items (10,000 items) (2) 60,000 items |
(1) Doctoral dissertations received by the NDL between FY1991 and FY2000 Free Data Service: Bibliographic Data of the National Diet Library Digital Collections |
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| Official Gazettes | 20,000 items (20,000 items) |
- | Japanese official gazettes are included in this collection from the first issue published on July 2, 1883 to the issue of April 30, 1952. *Gazettes published in later years are available from the インターネット版「官報」 (in Japanese) provided by the National Printing Bureau. **OFFICIAL GAZETTE; ENGLISH EDITION, which was published only during the occupation period by the GHQ (1946-1952) is also available online, but under the category of "Periodicals". |
| Modern Japanese political history materials | 5,000 items (5,000 items) |
- | This collection includes materials from the Modern Japanese Political History Materials Room that have been cataloged under the names of their former owners, who include political leaders, senior civil servants, and military officers.
**To check if the material you are looking for is digitized, please refer to the following web page:
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| Materials on the Allied Occupation of Japan | 70,000 items (60,000 items) |
- | This collection provides materials related to the Allied Occupation of Japan.
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| Gordon W. Prange Collection | 40,000 items | - | During the occupation period after World War II, Japanese publications were censored by the Allied Forces. The Gordon W. Prange Collection consists of newspapers, magazines and books submitted to the Allied Powers, and the originals are now preserved in the University of Maryland, U.S. Digitized books and magazines are provided from this collection. please refer to リサーチ・ナビ「Gordon W. Prange Collection」 (in Japanese). |
| Audio-Visual Materials | - | - | This collection includes Materials from Historical Recordings Collection, Audio materials, Video materials, Science Film, Scripts, and Music manuscripts. |
| Historical Recordings Collection | 50,000 items (5,000 items) |
About the Historical Recordings Collection: Number of recordings / Lists | The Historical Recordings Collection consists of digitized sound recordings of music, speeches, etc. on 78rpm records and metal discs produced in Japan from around 1900 to 1950. The Historical Records Archive Promotion Conference (HiRAC) conducted the digitization. The NDL does not own the original 78-rpm phonographs, metal discs, or other media from which the digital sound recordings of the Historical Recordings Collection were made. In some cases, however, it does have 78-rpm phonographs of the same title. The NDL provides all of the sound recordings within the facilities of the NDL and the participating libraries, and a part of the collection with expired copyright on the Internet. |
| Audio materials | 5,000 items | - | This collection includes digitized sound sources of cassettes and sono sheets as well as images of appendixes (books, sleeves, record faces, etc.) held by the NDL. *For more information on printing images of appendixes, please contact us at the Music and Audio-Visual Materials Room of the Tokyo Main Library or call 03-3581-2331 (from overseas, +81-3-3581-2331). The extension number is 26640.
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| Video materials | 100 items | - | This collection includes digitized videos from laserdiscs as well as images of appendixes (books, sleeves, disc faces, etc) held by the NDL. *For more information on printing images of appendixes, please contact us at the Music and Audio-Visual Materials Room of the Tokyo Main Library or call 03-3581-2331 (from overseas, +81-3-3581-2331). The extension number is 26640.
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| Scripts | 3,000 items (7 items) |
- | This collection includes TV and radio scripts written before 1980 which were donated to the NDL by the consortium for the promotion of broadcast script archives in Japan. Part of the collection was digitized and made available on the Internet or within the facilities of the NDL.
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| Music manuscripts | 100 items | - | This collection has been partly digitized from music manuscripts and documents collected by NDL.
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| Maps | 600 items | - | This collection includes digitized maps published in Japan from the late Taisho era to the early Showa era held by the NDL. For more information about the Copying Service, please refer to リサーチ・ナビ「デジタル化した地図の複写について」(in Japanese). |
| Special Digital Collections | 200 items (61 items) |
- | This collection includes materials that were donated to and are managed by the NDL as a single collection. These donated materials comprise various media, including but not limited to personal papers or manuscripts. Please see the following webpages for more details about the materials in each collection.
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| Collections from Other Institutions | - | - | This collection includes Materials from Science Film, Digitized materials of the University of Tokyo Library System, EXPO Aichi, Naimusho Keihokyoku Censorship Collection, Ishinomaki Hibi Shimbun. *Original materials of the collections are not held by the NDL. |
| Science Film | 300 items | - | This collection includes science films provided by the Society for the Support of the Science Film Museum (Incorporated NPO), which collected and digitized the films. These films were mainly produced from the 1950s to the 1990s. |
| Digitized materials of the University of Tokyo Library System | 11 items | - | This collection contains digitized materials from the university of Tokyo library system. |
| EXPO Aichi | 300 items (14 items) |
- | This collection comprises materials related to the EXPO 2005 AICHI JAPAN and were digitized by Global Industrial and Social Progress Research Institute. Most of these materials are videos, although there are some written records. |
| Naimusho Keihokyoku Censorship Collection | 1,000 items (300 items) |
- | The former Home Ministry was responsible for censorship in accordance with the provisions of the former Press Law, which was passed into law in 1893 (Meiji 26). Materials that were considered "disruptive of peace and order (禁安, kin’an)" or "corruptive of public morals (禁風, kinpu)" were banned from publication. A repository of banned publications managed by the Home Ministry was taken over by the US Armed Forces after World War II. Some of these materials were returned to Japan and added to the NDL’s collections, many remain in the Library of Congress (LC).Digitized LC holdings are also included in the NDL Digital Collections.
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| Ishinomaki Hibi Shimbun | 6 items (6 items) |
- | This collection includes Ishinomaki Hibi Shimbun, which are copies of a handwritten newspaper published from March 12 to 17, 2011 in the disaster-affected area following the Great East Japan Earthquake with the cooperation of the Ishinomaki Hibi Shinbun Newspaper Co.. This handwritten newspaper is also included the National Diet Library Great East Japan Earthquake Archive (Nickname: Hinagiku). |
| Collection | Number of items*2 | List of titles | Contents |
| Online publications | 1,230,000 items （1,080,000 items） |
- | This collection includes online publications (annual reports, year books, directories, promotional magazines, bulletins, journal articles, etc.) collected by the NDL, materials collected based on the e-legal deposit of online publications, and the NDL's own publications.
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Archived websites can be searched and viewed at the Web Archiving Project (WARP).
The bibliographic data and content information of the digitized materials of the NDL Digital Collections are available from the pages below.
Please refer to “Frequently asked questions regarding the use of the National Diet Library Digital Collections"
You can see a list of most accessed contents.