Kansai-kan: the New Facility of the National Diet Library, Japan

The National Diet Library, the central and parliamentary library in Japan, plans to establish a new facility tentatively called the Kansai-kan, to be located near Kyoto and Osaka, Western cities about 500 kilometers from Tokyo. The Kansai-kan will ultimately have enormous storage space for twenty million volumes and will solve the problem of filled-up shelves. Services focusing on document supply and library cooperation will be provided with electronic measures and information technologies. The construction work began in October 1998 and will be completed by spring 2002. The Kansai-kan is scheduled to start its services within the same year.
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