NACSIS officially started the Webcat, retrieval service for Union Catalog Databases on WWW in April 1998.

This service allows users to search NACSIS-CAT databases, which contains catalog information on books and serials held by libraries throughout Japan. Webcat can be accessed using standard Web browsers. It is free of charge, and users are not required to register. The URL is shown below. In addition, Webcat can also be reached via the NACSIS home page.

Search words may be entered in katakana, hiragana, or Roman letters. Once a search is executed, brief catalog data can be listed in either alphabetic or Japanese kana order. Also, users can click on the brief catalog data in the list to display information such as full catalog data, the names of libraries and library information.

By making Webcat available to the general public, NACSIS hopes to make the Union Catalog Databases project, which is one of our most fundamental endeavors, more widely known. Also, we hope that researchers and other interested persons will appreciate the work beeing done by NACSIS through the Internet.