Accession by the National Archives of government documents and records, from the various ministries and agencies is carried out in accordance with the National Archives (Law No.79 passed in 1999). Based on this Law, acquisitions from the various ministries and agencies and processes required for appropriate preservation, as historical materials, of government documents and records of importance are stipulated under a Cabinet Resolution of March 30,2001 in brief outline as follows:
(1) The core of "government documents and records of importance as historical materials " shall be the following items
1) Decision-making on important items of national policies, which were required for tracing the Japanese Government's major activities of the past.
2) Processes of deliberation, discussion, or consultation prior to reaching any decision-making, and the process of enforcing policies based on decisions made.
(2) Each ministry and agency shall in principle transfer its documents and records of importance as historical materials to the Prime Minister (the National Archives).
The transfer of government documents and records of importance as historical materials from the various ministries and agencies is to be carried out immediately after the retention periods for such government documents and records to be transferred have expired, in accordance with the Transfer Plan prepared by the Prime Minister for each fiscal year in consultation with the National Archives. Specifically, the transfer to the National Archives is based on the Transfer Plan, and detailed schedules arranged by the ministries and agencies.
In order to prevent damages caused by mold, insects, etc., government documents newly brought into the National Archives from ministries and agencies are fumigated before shelving.
A chamber fumigation system (reduced-pressure type) is used and it takes approximately seven days to complete a fumigation treatment.
Government documents and records for which fumigation treatment and arrangement have been completed are preserved in the stacks area where the temperature is maintained at 22 °C and the humidity at 55% so that they can be protected against direct sunlight, high temperatures and humidity, dust, atmospheric pollutants, etc.
In the stacks area smoke detectors and carbon dioxide and Inergen gas fire extinguishing systems are installed for fire protection.
Catalogs of files (Bosatsu Mokuroku, i.e. catalogs of bound volumes of documents and records) and, in the case of need, detailed catalogs of each item in a file (Kenmei Mokuroku)are created for newly acquired government documents and records. Catalog data is provided through a Digital Archive System enabling users to search these catalogs on the Internet.
Valuable and of ten -used government documents and records are microfilmed in order to prevent the originals from being damaged or soiled by reading, etc.
Approximately 83,000 volumes of government documents and records have already been microfilmed and those microfilm images are open to the public.
Priceless ancient books of great scholarly value and materials frequently used by researchers are provided to users in the form of photographic reproductions through such methods as photographic plate printing, for preservation requires protection of the originals.
Of the materials held by the National Archives, many are subject to deterioration over time, and some of them have been damaged by insects, mice, water, smoke, acidification, etc., and may thus be inaccessible to users.
Professional restorers deter mine the extent of damage and repair the affected parts, by applying various restoration methods, including paper patching, complete backing, interleaving, and leaf casting.
3-2 Kitanomaru Koen, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 102-0091
TEL:+81-3-3214-0641