1 Great East Japan Earthquake Archive Project

"Principle 1" of "the Seven Principles for the Reconstruction Framework" (Determined in the Reconstruction Design Council in Response to the Great East Japan Earthquake held on May 10, 2011) states purposes of preserving records of the great earthquake indefinitely, having them scientifically analyzed by academics, passing on the lessons learned to future generations and distributing the information both throughout Japan and overseas.

Additionally, the "Basic Guidelines for Reconstruction in response to the Great East Japan Earthquake" (Determined by the Reconstruction Headquarters in response to the Great East Japan Earthquake on July 29, 2011, revised August 11) section "5 (4) ⑥ Academic research and study on the disaster, recording the disaster and handing lessons learned on to the next generation" states purposes of collecting, preserving and preparing a public release system for records related to the earthquake and tsunami disasters and nuclear power incidents, and constructing a publicly accessible centralized system.

The National Diet Library calls this system the "Great East Japan Earthquake Archive," and is engaged in the "National Diet Library Great East Japan Earthquake records preservation project" based on nationwide distributed collection and preservation(Reference: " Basic Policy for the National Diet Library Great East Japan Earthquake Archive project.").

The basic philosophy of the project is as follows. Please refer to Collection of Records for details on the collection of records and other materials.

1. Nationwide collection, preservation and provision of records and other materials related to the Great East Japan Earthquake distributed throughout Japan and overseas.
2. To function as a national earthquake archive through the sharing of roles, cooperation and collaboration of public and private institutions each maximizing their own strengths.
3. Perpetually conveying to future generations and distributing both throughout Japan and overseas records and other materials related to the Great East Japan Earthquake, and contributing their practical application in recovery projects for afflicted areas, future disaster prevention and mitigation measures, academic research, education and other areas.

Agreements have been concluded with the following institutions.

Agreement partners

Edwin O. Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies at Harvard University

Cooperative agreement for the digital archive of the Great East Japan Earthquake between the NDL and the Edwin O. Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies at Harvard University

International Research Institute of Disaster Science at Tohoku University

Agreement for mutual cooperation between the National Diet Library and the International Research Institute of Disaster Science at Tohoku University

National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Resilience

Agreement with the National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Resilience

Approval for this project has also been obtained from saveMLAK which distributes disaster and relief information for museums, art museums, libraries, archives, and community centers.