CDNLAO top > CDNLAO Newsletter

• Index of this issue

No. 56, July 2006 Special topic: Legal deposit system

1. History of the Legal Deposit System in Japan
2. Outline of the Japanese Legal Deposit System
3. Purpose of the Legal Deposit System
4. Legal Deposit System Council
5. Promoting the Legal Deposit System

1. History of the Legal Deposit System in Japan

Before World War II, the legal deposit system was totally different from what it is today. In prewar Japan there were a few laws and regulations relating to legal deposit, including the Publishing Law and the Newspaper Law. The main purpose of these laws was to clamp down on publishing for the purpose of controlling public order and morals. Under these laws, publishers were obligated to deposit two copies of their publications with the Interior Ministry, one of which was sent to the Imperial Library (one of the predecessors of the National Diet Library).

After the war, the National Diet Library (NDL) was founded in 1948 under the direction of the U.S. Library Mission. Modeled after the Library of Congress in the U.S., the NDL has a dual role: to assist the legislative activities of the Diet as a parliamentary library and to provide library service for the Japanese public as a national library. The new legal deposit system of the NDL mandates that copies of all new publications published in Japan must be sent to the NDL in accordance with Article 24 and 25 of the NDL Law (Law No.5, February 9, 1948). The new legal deposit system of the NDL was in many points designed after the U.S. Code, especially in terms of legal deposit of government publications.

Despite the NDL's intent to give a fresh start to the new legal deposit system, not many publishers were willing to deposit their publications with the NDL. In addition to the impoverished conditions of the postwar Japanese society, the fact that the prewar legal deposit system had been deeply connected with censorship overshadowed the NDL's efforts to promote the legal deposit system.

To make a breakthrough in this deadlocked situation, a few amendments were made to the NDL Law in 1949 aiming to increase the number of deposited copies. Added was Article 25 paragraph 3, which says "to a person who has deposited publications in accordance with the provision of paragraph 1, the Chief Librarian shall give compensation equivalent to the expenses usually required for the issue and deposit of the publication."

This amendment was made also to comply with the stipulation in Article 29 paragraph 3 of the Constitution of Japan which says that "private property may be taken for public use upon just compensation therefor." According to this provision in the Constitution, making citizens deposit their private publications with the nation is regarded as private property being taken for public use. Based on this theory the library started to pay compensation to publishers.

The NDL also made a cooperative arrangement with major publication wholesalers: the wholesalers deposit publications in a block on behalf of publishers so that each publisher does not need to send in its own publications separately. These efforts to make the business routine of legal deposit easier for publishers, combined with the amendment of the NDL Law stated above, had a good effect on the increase of deposited publications through Article 25. For example, 3,903 volumes of monographs were deposited in 1948, which increased to 9,154 in 1949 and 20,641 in 1955. The latest 2005 statistics show that 107,504 monographs were deposited through Article 25.

Statistics: Newly ;Acquired Materials

	Fiscal Year	Purchase	Article 24	Article 25			Donation	International 　Exchange	Other means	Total
				compensation paid	compensation not paid	Total
Japanese and Chinese monographs (volumes)	2002	28,366	36,012	69,909	23,872	93,781	11,304	638	24,629	194,730
	2003	33,425	26,808	76,745	29,625	106,370	20,746	623	5,642	193,614
	2004	27,866	26,553	78,206	29,181	107,387	17,554	985	707	181,052
	2005	27,755	28,843	76,008	30,138	106,146	22,035	1,078	5,233	191,090
Western-language monographs (volumes)	2002	24,165	1,389	696	507	1,203	1,861	6,283	101	35,002
	2003	28,377	1,416	856	727	1,583	1,387	7,767	312	40,842
	2004	36,182	1,427	999	445	1,444	1,377	4,725	492	45,647
	2005	37,744	1,746	870	488	1,358	4,131	6,088	108	51,175
Periodicals (issues)	2002	78,400	89,410	9,243	164,218	173,461	8,506	44,404	1,127	395,308
	2003	85,626	101,623	12,697	165,833	178,530	6,275	49,617	3,232	424,903
	2004	88,468	85,951	22,342	162,746	185,088	4,280	42,517	1,144	407,448
	2005	91,379	80,145	23,482	162,670	186,152	4,852	41,920	1,359	405,807
Newspapers (items)	2002	58,884	4,188	352	130,462	130,814	5,813	3,126	19,437	222,262
	2003	58,808	3,822	430	118,217	118,647	9,243	5,541	1,882	197,943
	2004	62,476	3,198	438	116,548	116,986	7,932	4,879	921	196,392
	2005	64,436	3,096	515	131,699	132,214	10,249	4,967	2,912	217,874

2. Outline of the Japanese Legal Deposit System

The most characteristic features of Japan's legal deposit system are:

1. To aim to collect domestic publications as comprehensively as possible
2. To impose on publishers the obligation of making their publications reach the library
   

The Legal Deposit System of Japan is mainly divided into two categories: government publications (Article 24 and 24-2) and private publications (Article 25)

2.1 Legal Deposit of Government Publications

Article 24 of the NDL Law applies to publications issued by or for government agencies and government-related corporations. For example, for the publications issued by or for government agencies, the Law prescribes:

Of each publication coming under any of the following categories issued by or for any agency of the government (except confidential matters, blank forms, specimen pages and other simple publications; the same shall apply hereinafter), thirty (30) copies or less shall be deposited immediately with the National Diet Library for its official use or for its use in exchange for the publications of other governments and in other international exchanges in accordance with regulations to be made by the Chief Librarian:

1. Books;
2. Pamphlets;
3. Serials;
4. Music scores;
5. Maps;
6. Motion picture films;
7. Documents or charts besides those mentioned in the foregoing items, reproduced by printing and other processes;
8. Phonographic records;
9. Texts, images, sounds, or programs recorded by electronic, magnetic, or other methods which cannot be directly perceived by human senses.
   

Similarly Article 24-2 applies to publications issued by or for local government agencies such as metropolitan and prefectural governments. A prescribed number of copies of the publications of any local government agency and government-related corporations must be sent immediately to the NDL for its official use and for its use in international exchange. For example, prefectural and municipal agencies must deposit up to 5 copies; and town and villages up to 2 copies.

Here we need to pay attention to the word "for" in Article 24 and 24-2 in "issued by or for government agencies." This comes from a characteristic of Japanese official publications. Unlike the U.S., Japan has no single organization which controls the publishing of all government publications. There are many private individuals or organizations who are commissioned to publish reports or other publications for government agencies. Thus Article 24 and 24-2 define that the government agencies for which publications have been issued must deposit the relevant publications.

To which cases does this regulation apply? The Legal Deposit System Council, an advisory panel of outside experts, adduces the following two instances: 1) publications which contain information on the nation's activities and programs and for whose content the government agencies should be responsible; and 2) publications regarded as necessary for government agencies to fulfill their responsibilities, of which the government agencies are therefore required to purchase a certain number of copies or commission the publishing to third parties while bearing the actual expense of  the publishing work.

2.2. Legal Deposit of Private Publications

Article 25 of the NDL Law defines deposit of publications issued by others than those in Article 24 and 24-2, namely private publishers. When a private publication has been published, the publisher must send a complete copy of its best edition to the NDL within 30 days to contribute to the accumulation and utility of cultural goods. The categories of applicable "publications" defined in Article 25 are the same as Article 24.

As stated earlier, the NDL is to give compensation to private publishers who deposit their publications to the NDL. Then how does the library decide how much "just" compensation should be? The amount of compensation is determined by the library's regulation (Announcement of the Chief Librarian of the NDL, No.1, January 30, 1975). Paragraph 1 of the Announcement defines that compensation should be determined by the types of materials set by the Chief Librarian and that postage should be added to the amount. For example, it is laid down that compensation of monographs should be set between 40 and 60% of their retail prices and those of periodicals between 40 to 50%. Exceptionally if the production costs of materials surpass the compensation, or if there is no fixed retail price or in any other situation that may require other treatments than those stated in the above Announcement, the Chief Librarian must consult with the Legal Deposit System Council on the compensation for those exceptional cases.

Article 25-2 defines that "if the publisher fails, without legitimate reason, to deposit the publication ... he shall be punished with a fine of up to five times the retail price of the publication." However, this rule has never been invoked.

3. Purpose of the Legal Deposit System

3.1 Government publications

The NDL Law describes two main purposes for the legal deposit of government publications: official use or for use in exchange for the publications of other governments and in other international exchanges. These two purposes arise from the mission of the NDL as a parliamentary library to assist lawmakers. In its report of February 2004, the Legal Deposit System Council explains the two purposes in more detail as follows (summary):

"Official use" means to assist the members of the National Diet in their deliberation on government activities and performance. It is essential for the National Diet to monitor the government activities in putting the government under democratic control. In this regard, the deposit system of government publications serves to underpin the ideal democratic supervision of the government by the National Diet.

"Use in exchange for the publications of other governments and in other international exchanges" means that the NDL sends official publications to foreign governments and institutions in exchange of the foreign official publications. International exchange has been an important means to obtain foreign official publications, which have been used as essential information resources in the National Diet deliberations. In today's world where many countries share the same global problems, it is necessary to study and learn from other countries' examples. Our country’s publications are also used as handy resources by exchange partners in the same manner and thus contribute to the promotion of mutual understanding among countries.

3.2 Private Publications

For private publications, the purpose of legal deposit is to contribute to the accumulation and utility of cultural goods. The purpose of collecting and preserving cultural goods does not necessarily accord with the other purpose of making them available for the public. Because Japan's legal deposit system requires private publishers to deposit only one copy of each publication, it is even more difficult to serve the two purposes at the same level. In the past the NDL had considered whether the Law should be amended to make private publishers deposit two copies of each publication. The idea was, however, abandoned as assuring the budget required by the amendment was difficult. Therefore until now the number of copies of private publications to be deposited has remained at only one.

4. Legal Deposit System Council

On April 1, 1999 the Legal Deposit System Council (hereinafter referred to as "the Council") was established, following the reorganization of the former Legal Deposit System Research Council. The purpose of the Council is to contribute to the improvement and proper management of the legal deposit system. The Council's activities can be divided into the following two categories: 1) to deliberate important issues on the legal deposit system and the amount of compensation at the request of the Chief Librarian; and 2) to make recommendations to the Chief Librarian concerning those issues. The Council is composed of not more than 20 members appointed by the Chief Librarian. If it is necessary to investigate and discuss specific issue in greater depth, a subcommittee may be established under the Council.

The Council gave important advice to the library on the legal deposit of electronic publications in response to the Chief Librarian's consultation. In 1999 the then Legal Deposit System Research Council submitted a report which proposed that the NDL should include so-called "packaged" electronic publications, i.e., CDs, CD-ROMs, DVDs, etc., in the legal deposit system. Accordingly the NDL Law was amended in April 2000 so that the NDL could include packaged electronic publications in its legal deposit system. The amendment came into effect in October 2000. The 1999 report, however, suggested that for the time being, the legal deposit system would not apply to "networked electronic publications," such as those transmitted and received over the Internet.

Thus later in 2002 the NDL consulted the Legal Deposit System Council again to seek their views on the legal deposit of networked electronic publications. The Council submitted a report in 2004, which made it clear, following the conclusion of the Legal Deposit System Research Council, that incorporation of networked electronic publications into the legal deposit system is not appropriate in the light of the fundamental principles of legal deposit system -- publications must reach the library; completeness of coverage; and imposing obligatory submission of their publications on publishers -- and because of the characteristics of networked electronic publications. The Council suggested other methods of collecting networked electronic publications: coverage and means of acquisition, and ways to look at issues relating to copyright and compensation.

(For more information on 2004 report, see  http://www.ndl.go.jp/en/aboutus/deposit_council_book.html)

5. Promoting the Legal Deposit System

It is difficult to give an accurate estimate of how many new publications are produced each year and how many of them are deposited with the NDL. However, the staff in charge have long realized that not everything published in Japan has been deposited with the NDL. This is partly because not everything is commercially available and partly because some publications are only produced with a limited number of copies and distributed within a limited circle. To find out what is not yet deposited with the NDL, we use several information resources including MARC records produced by private corporations. We also obtain information from several prefectural libraries about local publications issued within their own area. These local publications are not easily found on the market and are difficult to obtain via the normal commercial route. There are also many cases in which our library patrons and reference staff inform us about what is not deposited. When we find un-deposited materials, we send out collection letters to the publishers to ask for their cooperation. We also distribute to publishers pamphlets which explain the importance of the legal deposit system.

We have tried to utilize as many opportunities as possible to raise awareness of the legal deposit system among Japanese publishers. It is our hope that we will be able to promote the legal deposit system even further to develop and preserve the most complete possible "national collection" for future generations.