2.Search

You can search for materials from the top page or from search results.

2-1 Using NDL Search

NDL Search offers three main types of searches: simple searches from the top page, detailed searches, and searches by material type.
While search fields for each of these searches can be customized, simple search is the most basic form, with the other searches consisting of additional fields.
On this page

Table 1 Searching the National Diet Library

Search Screen Name	Description Screen	Link
Simple search (only accessible from outside the NDL)	This is the top page you seen when accessing NDL Search from outside the NDL and includes only the most commonly used search fields.	https://ndlsearch.ndl.go.jp/en/
Simple search (only accessible while on the NDL premises)	This is the top page you see when accessing NDL Search while on the NDL premises and includes search fields that are often used by patrons at the NDL.
Detailed search	Unlike simple search from on the top screen, multiple search fields are available but cannot be added or deleted.	https://ndlsearch.ndl.go.jp/en/search/detail-search
Search by material type	Search fields suitable for the material type are available. A search scope is specified for each search page. Please note that there are some search pages that are limited to NDL holdings.	Examples Detailed Search (Newspaper) NDL holdings only Detailed Search (Map) NDL holdings only Doctoral Dissertation

Search fields can be customized for each page. Fields that are added or deleted to the simple search (accessible from outside the NDL) are carried over to the top page and to search results but not to the detailed search or search by material pages, where they must be added or removed individually.
For more information about customizing search fields, see About Search Customization.

2-2 Simple searches

Simple Search Screen

Table 2 Simple searches

Item Name	Description
Keyword search (1-a)	Search by title, author, publisher, subject, table of contents, etc. Enter a keyword in the text box and click the Search button. A list of search results is displayed. You can perform an AND search by entering a space between keywords. For information on other available search symbols and operators, see Search Specification Details.
Specify scope of search (1-b)	Refine search results to the materials specified in the check box. You can also filter search results to show only materials available online. National Diet Library You can search the materials held by the National Diet Library, digital materials available at the National Diet Library, E-journals, etc. Other libraries in Japan You can search for materials and digital materials held by other libraries in Japan that are linked with data. Available online For a detailed explanation, please refer to Materials available online.
Refiners (1-c)	You can add search fields other than keywords by clicking the check boxes. search fields can be customized. For more information, see Customizing search fields.

2-3 Customizing search fields

NDL Search remembers added or deleted search fields, so that they are included in later searches.

Description

Search screen — Click Refiners to expand the simple search dialog to show all standard search fields.

Table 3 The Advanced Search dialog

Item Name	Description
Search fields(2-a)	These are the fields applied to the search. See Search fields for descriptions and specifications of the individual fields.
Add fields(2-b)	Adds or deletes search fields. See Editing search fields for details.
Clear(2-c)	Clears all content entered on the search page. Any text in the field, and all checkboxes are cleared. One exception to this is the Specify Databases Individually menu, which will not be cleared and will remain in effect if an database has been specified.
Close refiners(2-d)	Closes an expanded search page and reduces space⁽¹⁾ .
Collapse(2-e)	You can collapse the search field by pressing the button⁽²⁾. When collapsed, the field name is displayed just below the keyword search field. You can expand a search field by pressing the button next to its name.
Collapsed search field(2-f)	Click the button next to the name of a collapsed search field to display the search field again by clicking the button next to the collapsed field name.

Editing search fields

You can click the "Add field button (2-b)" to open the Add search field dialog and display the available fields. Select the check box to add the corresponding field.

Table 4 Add search field dialog

Item Name	Description
Advanced search(3-a)	Find search fields using keywords.
"Reset to initial settings" button (3-b)	Resets the dialog to show only the nine standard fields: Library, Title, Author/Editor, Publisher, Year, ISBN/ISSN, Call Number, Material Type, and Media type.
Search field (3-c)	Select or deselect the check box to add or remove a search field.
Search field group (3-d)	Group together similar search fields or search fields that are unique to a specific material type. Select the checkbox next to the group name to add all fields in the group.
Link to Research Navi (3-e)	Opens a description of the search field. Please use it to view a ditailed explanation of the search fields in detail.
Cancel (3-f)	Discards any previously selected search field selection state and closes the dialog. Identical to clicking the × button in the upper right corner of the screen or click outside the dialog to close it.
Decide (3-g)	Saves the selected search field and returns to the search screen.

NDL Search classifies search fields as follows.

Standard search fields
These fields are displayed by default by clicking Refiners or by clicking Reset to Standard Fields in the Add search field dialog.
Search fields that must be added intentionally
These fields are not available unless added from the Add search field dialog.
Search fields unique to a specific material type
These fields are not available unless added from the Add search field dialog and are unique to a specific material type. Please note that not all materials types have such fields and might not be available in combination with other fields.

Customized field specification

Saving customized fields

Customized fields are saved under the following conditions.

When you are not logged in your search fields are saved by storing the information in your browser using cookies. Even after closeing your browser, the next time you visit NDL Search, your browser will read the cookies and apply the search fields from your previous session. You can reset your search fields by deleting the cookies associated with NDL Search in your browser.
When you have logged in, the search fields from your previous session are applied. At this time, customized search field will overwrite the data from the cookies saved when you were not logged in.

Customized search fields are saved individually for each search page and are not carried over between simple search (from outside the NDL), simple search (on the NDL premises), detailed search, or search by material type pages.
For example, if you were to add the NDC search field to the simple search (from outside the NDL) page on your computer at home and then go to the NDL, you would need to add the NDC search field to the simple search (on the NDL premises) from a terminal at the NDL.

2-4 Search fields

The following fields are available in NDL Search.
Specifying multiple search fields performs an AND search for those fields.
Click the next to a search field to view the help page for that field.

Table 5 Search fields

Field	Description
Library	Select the appropriate check box to search the holdings of the National Diet Library only or of other libraries in Japan. You can also limit your search to materials available online by toggling the "Materials available online".
Title	Enter keywords to search for in the book titles, volume and part numbers, series titles, table of content(NDL data only),or article titles. Enter multiple keywords, to perform an AND search for those fields.
Authors/editors	Search for the names of authors, editors, translators, or others. Enter multiple keywords, to perform an AND search for those fields.
Publisher	Search for the names of organizations or individuals who publish material. Enter multiple keywords to perform an AND search for those fields.
Year	Search for the year of publication using four digits. This field might not be useful for finding individual issues, so if you have trouble finding what you are looking for, try searching without specifying a year of publication.
ISBN/ISSN	Search by ISBN or ISSN.
Call No.	Search by NDL call number.
Material type	Search by material type. For more information, see Material types.
Media type	Search by media type. For more information, see Media type.
Holding libraries	Search by institution by entering the National Diet Library or the name of other libraries in Japan. This field supports prefix searches. Please refer to our List of Data Providers for information on which institutions are available. Search results will display an icon for institution that hold the material, and you can filter your results by selecting the check box.
Location	You can specify a collection available from the Tokyo Main Library, the Kansai-kan, the International Library of Children's Literature, or any of their various service points. You can also specify digital data that is available regardless of service point. Selecting the Tokyo Main Library, the Kansai-kan, the International Library of Children's Literature, or any service point therein will search for both printed, and digital data. Some materials that appear in these search results might not be available to patrons. Please review the "National Diet Library Holdings" column in detailed bibliographic records for information on availability. The term "digital data" refers to material in the National Diet Library Digital Collections, e-books and e-journals available at the NDL, website names collected through the Web Archiving Project (WARP), current awareness articles, and online journals published in Japan that have been issued ISSN. The term "digital data (data for persons with print disabilities)" refer to data that is only available to registered users of the Transmission Service for Persons with Print Disabilities who have logged into Mina Search.
Databases	You can specify a database that is linked to NDL Search. Toggle the OR/NOT switch to perform OR search or NOT searches. Please refer to Search Targets of the NDL Search for details. The Specify Databases Individually setting can be canceled by checking the Deselect All checkbox and clicking Apply.
Collection	Narrow your search to a group of materials. See collections for more information.
Available online	Narrow your search to materials that are available via the Internet. The choices for the search item "Internet browsing" are as follows: Available without login: Materials that do not require registration and can be browsed by anyone with an internet connection. Available with Digitized Contents Transmission Service: Materials subject to the National Diet Library's Digitized Contents Transmission Service for Individuals (You must be an official registered user of the NDL to use the service. This service is not available to patrons who live outside Japan.) Only available on-site at the NDL: Materials that can only be browsed at the National Diet Library (This includes materials in the National Diet Library Digital Collections, materials in the Web Archiving Project (WARP), subscription e-journals, e-books, etc.) Only available on-site at the holding library: Digital materials provided by other libraries in Japan that can only be browsed on-site at the holding library. Available with Digitized Contents Transmission Service (Materials for Persons with Print Disabilities): Materials that can only be used by registered users of the Data Transmission Service for Persons with Print Disabilities. Available for purchase: Digital data from the Japan Publication Registry Office (JPRO). No digital data: Materials that do not fall into any of the above categories. *On the NDL Search website, materials that are "Available without login" and "Available with Digitized Contents Transmission Service" are both referred to as "Available online." For more information, please refer to materials available online.
Tables of content and articles	Search for the title of articles in materials such as the Japanese Periodicals Index, the tables of content of books, reference books, collections of papers, materials selected by NDL librarians from the books and periodicals in the Library's collection, materials in the NDL Digital Collections, and the tables of content included in publication information.

Please refer to the following pages for explanations of other search fields.

2-5 How to performs searches

Search symbols (prefix search, backward match, and phrase searches)

Use parenthesis " and asterisks * with keywords to perform prefix searches, backward matches, or phrase searches.

Table 6 Explanation of search symbols

Search Name	Description
Prefix search	Placing a single-byte asterisk () after a search term enables a prefix search. Prefix search is available for items that default to an exact match (call number, ISBN, ISSN, and search items listed in Miscellaneous Numbers (in Japanese)). For all other items, prefix search is enabled as a partial match. [Example] Enter "Y18" in the call number field to search for materials starting with the call number "Y18".
Backward match	You can perform a backward search for call numbers and other numbers in detailed search fields, by adding the half-width character "*" in front of the search term.
Phrase search	You can search for phrases that include spaces by adding the half-width character " before and after the phrase. For example, use the keyword "journal of science" to search for materials that include data containing "journal of science".

Single-character searches

Searching for a single character performs a prefix search by default. For this reason, you are not able to search for single characters at the end of a word or just before a word break.

Search Operators (AND/OR/NOT)

You can perform an AND, OR, and NOT searches by entering the following initials and delimiters, such as half-width of full-width spaces.

Table 7 List of search operators

Initial	Operator
space	AND
+	OR
-	NOT

For example, use the search string "Natsume + Soseki -Kokoro" to search for "Natsume OR Soseki NOT Kokoro".

Use half-width characters for + and -.
When AND, OR, and NOT searches are used in combination, they are processed in order from left to right.
The first word is treated as AND, even if OR is specified for all words.

This is an example of searches using the keywords Natsume, Soseki, and Kokoro.

Venn diagram showing the keywords Natsume, Soseki, and Kokoro

Table 8 A Venn diagram showing the keywords Natsume, Soseki, and Kokoro

Area Number	Description
(1)	Materials that contain the word Natsume but do not contain the words Soseki or Kokoro
(2)	Materials that contain both the words Natsume and Soseki but do not contain the word Kokoro
(3)	Materials that contain the word Soseki but do not contain the words Natsume or Kokoro
(4)	Materials that contain both the words Natsume and Kokoro but do not contain the word Soseki
(5)	Materials that contain the words Natsume, Soseki, and Kokoro
(6)	Materials that contain both the words Soseki and Kokoro but do not contain the word Natsume
(7)	Materials that contain the word Kokoro but do not contain the words Natsume or Soseki
(8)	Materials that do not contain the word Natsume, Soseki, or Kokoro

Table 9 Search operators and search results

Operator Patterns	Input Values	What to hit	Numbers on the Venn diagram
AND	Natsume	Materials containing the word Natsume	(1), (2), (4), (5)
OR	+Natsume	Materials containing the word Natsume	(1), (2), (4), (5)
NOT	-Natsume	Materials that do not contain the word Natsume	(3), (6), (7), (8)
AND AND	Natsume Soseki	Materials containing both the words Natsume and Soseki	(2), (5)
AND OR	Natsume +Soseki	Materials containing either the word Natsume or the word Soseki	(1), (2), (3), (4), (5), (6)
AND NOT	Natsume -Soseki	Materials that contain the word Natsume but do not contain the word Soseki	(1), (4)
OR AND	+Natsume Soseki	Materials containing both the words Natsume and Soseki	(2), (5)
OR OR	+Natsume +Soseki	Materials containing either the word Natsume or the word Soseki	(1), (2), (3), (4), (5), (6)
OR NOT	+Natsume -Soseki	Materials that contain the word Natsume but do not contain the word Soseki	(1), (4)
NOT AND	-Natsume Soseki	Materials that do not contain the word Natsume but do contain the word Soseki	(3), (6)
NOT OR	-Natsume +Soseki	Materials that do not contain the word Natsume or do contain the word Soseki	(2), (3), (5), (6), (7)
NOT NOT	-Natsume -Soseki	Materials that contain neither the word Natsume not the word Soseki	(7), (8)
AND NOT AND	Natsume -Soseki Kokoro	Materials that contain both the words Natsume and Kokoro but that do not contain the word Soseki	(4)

2-6 About the search history

If you are logged in, your recent searches are saved in search history.
You can view the search history by clicking on the search window.

The search history displays the specified search conditions in a simple manner.
Click Search History to display the search history page.

Table 10 Search history

Item Name	Description
Search history (1-a)	Displays past searches and their search field. Click on the area to perform the search again.
Clear All (1-b)	Deletes all of your search history.
Delete button (1-c)	Deletes a single search history.

Footnotes

^
Once specified search fields are applied to searches even when displayed in collapsed format.
^
Once specified, search fields are applied to searches even when displayed in collapsed format.