NISE collects, arranges, stores, and supplies books, materials, and information on special needs education in collaboration with prefectural special needs education centers and related educational research institutions throughout Japan in order to contribute the development of this field.

Framework for Supplying Comprehensive Information for Special Needs Education

NISE's website (http://www.nise.go.jp) supplies comprehensive information on education for children with disabilities. It includes a database of bibliographies and other items related to special needs education.

• The portal site "Shogai no aru Kodomo no Kyouiku no Hiroba" (Education plaza for children with Disabilities) presents a variety of topics that match the needs of site users, with links to other related institutions. In particular, the website's "Shogai no aru Kodomo no Kyouiku nit suite Manabu" (Learning about Education for Children with Disabilities) section explains individual disabilities to increase understanding as well as methods of instruction. It also provides support for teacher education and training while at the same time seeing to enhance general understanding of education for children with disabilities.
• NISE is currently addressing the issue of "e-learning" to reinforce the content of this section. Furthermore, in order to support training at special needs education centers in each of Japan's prefectures, NISE is providing courses on highly specialized content and pressing issues over the Internet. In this way, NISE is moving forward to establish its e-learning frame work.
• NISE's website introduced screen reader software for people with visual disabilities in April 2005. NISE also offers information available over its website for cell phones.

Book Collection

2008. 4. 1

Classification	Japanese	Foreign	Braille (Japanese)	Braille (Foreign)	Total
General Works	2,656	395	3		3,054
Philosophy	2,585	1,155	9		3,749
History	360	30	13		403
Social Sciences	18,612	3,879	176		22,667
Natural Sciences	5,332	1,904	66	1	7,303
Technology	737	53		6	796
Industry	46	1			47
The Arts	347	17	5		369
Language	934	332	102		1,358
Literature	342	13	106		461
Boundary	11,647	8,846			20,493
Total	43,598	16,615	480	7	60,700

Periodicals	Japanese 1,376	Foreign 497

Databases

2008. 4. 1

Database	Entries	Number of Entries Period of Entries
Catalog of Literature on School for Special Needs Education (Research reported in "The Japanese Journal of Special Education")	Titles, authors, names of publications, dates of issues, and subject categories	84,189 1964. 1～
Subjects Database of Applied Researches in Special Needs Education (Subjects studied by special needs education school)	Titles, authors, names of publications, publishers, dates of issues, summaries, and subject categories	46,084 1980. 4～
Library Catalogue (Japanese and foreign books, periodicals and other materials)	Titles, authors, publishers, dates of publication, and library information	Books and Materials 44,061 Periodicals 17,144 1971. 10～

World Wide Web

Database services and publications of the NISE are available through the NISE Web pages.

National Institute of Special Education Seminars

　We hold the following national special needs education seminar twice a year. The purposes are to disseminate latest researches on special needs education, to explore today's issues or the way we should go, to get awareness about activities of our institute people and to have a place to exchange information about educational contents, methods and technology by researchers, experts and teachers.

◆National Institute of Special Needs Education Seminar Ⅰ

　The seminar is undertaken for the purpose of exchanging information and outcomes of researches. The seminar is organized to arrange lectures and discussion with experts, staffs of NISE and audiences.

• Date : January 21, 22, 2009 (2days)
• Place : National Olympics Memorial Youth Center (Tokyo)

◆National Institute of Special Needs Education Seminar Ⅱ

　　The purpose of this seminar is to disseminate outcomes of projects by NISE, to contribute to the development of educational practices and conversely to reflect the needs of schools and teachers to the research activities of NISE.
　The seminar consists of discussion session with audiences and staffs.

• Date : February 13, 2009 (1day)
• Place : National Olympics Memorial Youth Center (Tokyo)