Acquisitions and Bibliography Department

This is based on an article of the same title in the series <“1998-2008”
Topics during the last decade and future prospects> in
the NDL Monthly Bulletin No. 566 (May 2008).

As of the end of December 2007, the National Diet Library (NDL) holds a total of 34.39 million materials comprising 9 million books, 12.32 million serials (periodicals and newspapers), and 13.07 million non-book materials (microforms, phonographic records, CDs, DVDs, maps, musical scores, etc.) (See Table: Number of holdings as of December 2007). When the NDL opened, it held approximately 100,000 books. In 60 years, the holdings increased by 8.9 million volumes, that is, by about 90 times. In addition, there was an increase of 1.86 million volumes compared with 7.14 million in fiscal 1998, the year of the NDL’s 50th anniversary.

Such a well-stocked collection is the basis for all services provided by the NDL. With regard to publications published in Japan, the NDL strives to acquire materials exhaustively through book deposit in accordance with the legal deposit system, which is now at the 60th anniversary of its establishment. At the same time, the NDL also acquires through purchase, donation, and other means. It acquires foreign materials through purchase, international exchange, donation, etc.

This article will show some changes in the acquisition of materials especially in the last decade, focusing on the legal deposit system.

Table: Number of holdings as of December 2007

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First of all, let’s take a look at the situation of publishing in Japan in the last decade. In 2006, the number of newly published books exceeded 80,000, and the number of periodicals was 4,540 titles (of these titles, new periodicals were about 200). Compared with the numbers in 1998, newly published books increased by 27.9 % and periodicals by 2.1%. Compared with other countries in the world, the number of publications in Japan is the world’ s fifth largest after the United States, the United Kingdom, China and Germany ⁱ.

In proportion to the growth in the number of publications, deposited materials, which are acquired on the basis of the legal deposit system, are increasing (See Chart 1 and Chart 2).

The number of deposited materials amounted to 620,000 in fiscal 2006 (See Chart 2). This means that 12,000 materials on average per week had been deposited to the NDL. Moreover, collections through deposit accounted for half of all NDL’ s collected materials,  and especially in fiscal 2006, more than 70% of books (Japanese, Chinese and Korean) were collected through deposit. Thus, the legal deposit system is the essence of the acquisition of the NDL.

Turning now to the deposit situation by comparison with that of fiscal 1998, deposited materials increased by 16.4% in books, 2% in serials (periodicals and newspapers), and 41.8% in non-book materials (microforms, optical disks, etc.). The particularly large growth in the number of deposited non-book materials resulted from a change in the law: Publications in which recorded electromagnetic information on tangible media such as CD-ROMs (offline electronic publications) are required to be deposited from October 2000.

One of the factors that increased the number of deposited books is the launch of a blanket deposit of textbooks and teachers’ manuals through the Textbook Publishers Association of Japan. It was started in April 2002, when the International Library of Children’s Literature (ILCL) was fully opened.

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The NDL acquires materials by purchase, international exchange, donation, and other means, as well as through deposit.

It purchases domestic and foreign materials which are judged as particularly- essential in accordance with the Guideline for Acquisition of Materials and the Policy for Acquisition of Materials. In fiscal 2008, ¥2,077,000,000 is approved as the purchase budget ⁱⁱ.

The NDL purchases materials published in Japan, such as old materials valuable for publishing culture in Japan, open-access materials provided in each room in the Tokyo Main Library, in the Kansai-kan, and in the ILCL, part of electronic publications provided in the library, etc. The number of materials acquired through purchase decreased from 316,232 in fiscal 1998 to 261,435 in fiscal 2006. This was because the classification by means of acquisition had been changed: Materials “produced” by the NDL by microfilming its materials would be classified not as “purchase”, but as “NDL production.” Without this effect, it can be said that the number of purchases remains roughly even.

The NDL acquires materials published in foreign countries through purchase and international exchange. Of them, international exchange with foreign governments and international organizations is the exchange of their own country’ s publications among signatories to the Convention Concerning the International Exchange of Publications (in 1984) and the Convention Concerning the Exchange of Official Publications and Government Documents between States (in 1984). In international exchange, the NDL sends materials deposited from national and local governments through the legal deposit system.

These materials are used overseas to inform readers about Japan.

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Though paper publications such as books, magazines and newspapers are still in the mainstream, forms of publication are becoming diversified and now electronic publications including CD-ROMs, DVDs and electronic journals are popular. The NDL also acquires such publications.

3-1 Offline electronic publications

Acquisition of offline electronic publications was incorporated into the legal deposit system by an amendment of the NDL Law in April 2000. The amendment came into effect in October 2000 (related article).

In Article 24-1(9) of the NDL Law, offline electronic publications are defined as “texts, images, sounds, or programs recorded by electronic, magnetic, or other methods which cannot be directly perceived by human senses.” This may sound a bit complicated but it actually means media such as cassette tape, CD, CD-ROM, MD, floppy disk, video tape, LD, DVD, and DVD-ROM.

Chart 3 shows the great increase in acquisitions after offline electronic publications became covered by the legal deposit system. Full-scale provision of acquired offline electronic publications started in July 2001.

3-2 Networked electronic publications

Networked electronic publications (publications made public via communication network) are ephemeral even though they include unique information. We need to preserve, and archive that kind of information and ensure access to it.

Following the report from the Legal Deposit System Council “Concept of the Acquisition System for the Networked Electronic Publications” (December 2004), the NDL has been considering a system to acquire networked electronic publications separately from the legal deposit system since January 2005. Under the current state that digital information sent across the computer network is impermanent and disappears day by day, the NDL, which is expected to take an initiative in preserving and archiving such information from a long-term viewpoint, recognizes the necessity of acquisition of those materials under a legal framework.

Currently a project for archiving networked electronic publications is being carried out by selecting websites of national & local governments and electronic journals with permission. It is called WARP (Web ARchiving Project) and is open on the NDL website (Japanese only).

3-3 Revision of the legal deposit system

Besides the above, we make appropriate reviews of the legal deposit system to respond to the changing times. When the amendment referred to in 3-1 was made, we also conducted a review of the number of copies to be deposited by national and local governments in keeping with the actual use ⁱⁱⁱ. In response to the administrative reform, we also revised the system in December 2004 to mandate other entities with corporate status such as independent administrative institutions, national university corporations, and local independent administrative agencies, to deposit plural copies when they issue a publication. (For details, see “Partial amendments to the National Diet Library Law – Legal deposit system for independent administrative institutions and local independent administrative institutions” pp.28-29, National Diet Library Monthly Bulletin No. 525, December 2004 (Japanese only) )

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We acquire foreign materials selectively through purchase or international exchange.

4-1 Scope of acquisition of foreign materials

We intensively acquire core journals and newspapers, basic bibliographies and reference books, statutes and parliamentary documents, science and technology materials and materials on emigration ^iv, Asia and Japan (“Materials on Japan” means works on Japan or by Japanese authors). We started to build the collection of materials on the Allied Occupation of Japan in 1978, which include Records of the General Headquarters Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (GHQ/SCAP) and the Gordon W. Prange Collection. The Prange Collection was built through the GHQ censorship and is held by the University of Maryland. We have selected magazines and newspapers from the collection and since fiscal 2005 have been adding children’s literature to our collection.

A purchase budget for acquisition of foreign science and technology materials has been provided since 1952 and we have been spending it on PB/AD reports (since 1952), foreign journals (since 1953), nuclear reports (since 1954), foreign doctoral dissertations (since 1958) and others. Most of the materials are stored in the Kansai-kan, which was opened in October 2002.

4-2 Restructuring the international exchange of publications

Recently more and more government publications are being digitized and provided via the Internet. We have to cope with this change. Aiming at meeting the needs of both the NDL and partners in the international exchange programs, we investigate partners and selection of materials for exchange.

4-3 Electronic journals

Digitization of science and technology materials is rapidly expanding and “electronic journals” came into being. In order to provide that kind of information as library materials, we revised the NDL law in fiscal 2001, and started to provide electronic journals and databases in fiscal 2002. More than 20,000 titles of online journals are available now.

Electronic journals are advanced in search functions and enable us to search a word in a thesis freely. On the other hand, there are restrictions on many subscription types in general, which do not allow: (1) to select journal titles freely, (2) to view after the expiration date, (3) to provide to remote users. So the NDL still cannot set out a policy to gradually switch to electronic journals by stopping the purchase of paper materials.

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In fiscal 2002, the NDL-OPAC (National Diet Library Online Public Access Catalog) was open to the public and it enabled people to search the NDL collections and to request copying service. These achievements are fruits of the NDL’s constant efforts in organizing bibliographic data of numerous daily acquired materials to make them available, as well as in clarifying the location and availability of each material. As acquired materials and bibliographic data created by the NDL form the basis for any service of the NDL, we need to aim at further enrichment of these.

In the NDL, the Acquisitions and Bibliography Department was established by the integration of the Acquisitions Department and the Bibliography Department in April 2008 (related article). On this occasion, we reaffirm our commitment to making efforts in collection development, providing prompt & accurate bibliographic information and further improvement in services.

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ⁱ Shuppan Nenkan 2003 (Publishing Yearbook 2003), Vol.1, Shuppan News Co., Ltd, 2003; Shuppan Nenkan 2007 (Publishing Yearbook 2007), Vol. 1, Shuppan News Co., Ltd, 2007.

ⁱⁱ In addition to the general purchase budget, a budget for research materials that are used to provide legislative support is allocated.

ⁱⁱⁱ After taking into consideration the number of copies needed for Diet deliberation and for international exchange, we revised the system to set the number flexibly while maintaining the principle of 30 copies. For publications issued by local administrative institutions, we set the number at five or less.

^iv Collection of materials on Japanese emigration in Latin America, Hawaii and elsewhere has been budgeted for since 1984. The NDL dispatches staff to acquire this kind of materials systematically.

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