The National Diet Library (NDL) has provided the "Nihon Zenkoku Shoshi" (Japanese National Bibliography) in two forms up to now, printed form and Web form. However, we now inform you of the cessation of publication in print version after the 22nd issue of 2007 (no. 2631), which will be issued on June 26, 2007.

The NDL has been publishing the Japanese National Bibliography to serve as a national bibliography as required by the National Diet Library Law Art.7 in order to compile the standard bibliographic information of domestically-published materials and  Japanese-language publications issued abroad and acquired by the NDL, and to make a prompt announcement both at home and abroad.

Since 1948, the year of the NDL's foundation, in which it started to publish the predecessor "Nohon Geppo" (monthly list of deposited materials), the NDL has up to now published the national bibliography in printed form, changing its names, coverage and other details. In April 2002 the NDL started putting the Japanese National Bibliography on its website, and has been providing it along with print. In 2006, when four years had passed since we began providing the bibliography on the NDL website, we conducted a review on the publication forms among the divisions involved, and decided to discontinue the printed form and to provide the bibliography only via the Web. In March 2007, partial amendments to the National Diet Library Law were enacted in the 166th session of the Diet, paving the way for the discontinuance of the print version.

The major reason is the pervasiveness of the Internet. In 2001, when it was decided to provide the Japanese National Bibliography (Japanese only) via the website, the Internet diffusion rate in Japan was only 44.0%, but this rose dramatically and reached 66.8% in 2005. In addition, Internet availability increased in libraries, the major subscribers to the Japanese National Bibliography, and it is now considered that the informational environment for the web version has been put in place.

With the diffusion of the Internet, changes have been happening in the forms of publication of national bibliographies in countries around the world. According to a survey conducted by the IFLA (International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions) Bibliography Section in 2001 in which the question "What are the present format(s) for publication of the national bibliography?" was asked, of the 52 countries which replied, 39 were providing in print, 22 via the Web, and 12 in both forms. Some of these countries replied that they were considering discontinuation of the printed form and the national libraries of Australia, Canada, France and the United States replied that they had already discontinued the print form and were providing the national bibliographies via the Internet. In the same survey, it was assumed that "the format of the national bibliography has been changing from print to Internet to a certain extent and that this trend will continue and even accelerate in the years ahead." A survey targeting the Asian region conducted by IFLA four years later in 2005, to which 14 countries and regions replied, proved this presumption to be true, showing the results that three of them which had been offering their national bibliography in print in 2001 had ceased publication and switched over to providing it via the Web (see accompanying table).

The switch-over of the medium from print to Internet can be explained by the advantages that the time for provision can be shortened by cutting down the time and effort used in printing, and that more users can be expected because of free of charge and open-ended accessibility.

The Web form of the Japanese National Bibliography appears on the NDL website two weeks earlier than its printed form and this has brought about rapid provision of information. Since the Web version is free of charge while the print has been provided for profit and the number of issues is limited, anyone with access to the Internet can now easily use the Web form, so the bibliography has become available to many more people. As for the back numbers, you still can see all the numbers after the 27th issue of 2002 (no. 2386) via the NDL Web Archiving Project (WARP) (Japanese only), although difficulty has been experienced in searching the pages of a specific number. After the cessation of the printed version, back numbers will be on their own new page on the NDL website.

Bibliographic data carried in the Japanese National Bibliography will be searchable in NDL-OPAC (National Diet Library Online Public Access Catalog) after 17 days for monographs and 52 days for serials. If you need more detailed bibliographic information, please visit the NDL-OPAC.

With the steady improvement of the informational environment, there is an ever-greater need to provide highly convenient information utilizing the advancing information technology. From now on, we would like to consider comprehensively how we should provide bibliographic data and tools for users, as well as linkage with our digital library services, bringing into view the improvement of our major bibliographic services and the databases including the Japanese National Bibliography, NDL-OPAC, and seek means of providing information better suited to the needs of users.

The printed form of the Japanese National Bibliography will be discontinued after a history of about 60 years, but we would like you to visit our website and continue to utilize the Web form of the Japanese National Bibliography as well as the many other types of bibliographic data our library provides.

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