Acquisitions and Bibliography Department

This is based on the article of the same title
in the NDL Monthly Bulletin No. 566 (May 2008).

The National Diet Library (NDL) is mandated to collect exhaustively domestic publications under the legal deposit system. To what extent do we, in fact, cover of all publications in Japan? To figure out the number, we conducted a survey on the percentage of national publications acquired by the NDL from October to December 2007. It is likely that we can easily reach the approximate percentage if we divide the number of the national publications collected in a year by the total number of domestic publications issued in the same year. However, domestic publications are not simply what we see in bookstores. They include official publications edited and issued by local governments and similar bodies, which are not commercially available. Audio-visual materials such as CDs and DVDs, and single-sheet maps, are also considered as domestic publications. It is not an easy task to prove how many domestic publications there are in total in Japan including these kinds of publications.

Consequently, the survey was conducted by picking up some sample bibliographic data from book catalogs and checking if the NDL holds them. All of the sample data are for materials published in 2005.

(1) National agencies

In a survey sampling from Seifu kankobutsuto sogo mokuroku published by the Official Gazette Co-operation of Japan, a comprehensive catalog of official publications, the deposit rate was about 90% for publications on sale. On the other hand, when including publications not commercially distributed, according to Seifu shiryo abstract by the Government Data Research Center of Japan, it was under 50%. The data indicates a low deposit rate of so-called “internal information,” for instance, reports and deliberative documents by councils and research committees, research reports of private research institutions commissioned by agencies, and business documents. People sometimes misunderstand that these are not to be deposited. However, every material which is issued with a certain number of copies for distribution is a publication due to be sent to the NDL, except confidential matters, blank forms, specimen pages and other simple publications. We will proactively ask for deposit of these material groups that currently have a low deposit rate.

(2) Local governments

The sample survey results on publications edited by local governments using the catalogs of administrative information centers of relevant prefectural governments and 17 major cities, or OPACs of prefectural and city libraries, showed that about 40% of publications were delivered to the NDL. However, as some data included “simple publications,” which are defined as not to be deposited, the actual figure can be higher if we exclude them and make a recalculation. The figure had varied quite a bit among local governments: the highest marked 94% and the lowest 9%. These differences might arise from the range of catalog (whether confined to paid-for publication, or covering all materials including leaflets). Also gaps in the perception of materials to be deposited can be another cause. We began to take action to deepen local governments’ understanding of the legal deposit system by delivering booklets on it and other means.

(*1) includes materials on sale.
(*2) includes materials not on sale.

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(1) Books

In a survey on private publications utilizing commercial bibliographies including MARCs created by Nippan Toshokan Service Corporation and TOHAN Corporation, the deposit rate reached around 90%. It is reasonable to conclude that almost all books commercially distributed are deposited with the NDL because the other 10% includes materials which are out of list of the deposit such as calendars, notebooks and household account books. This high deposit rate seems to have a lot to do with the Japan Publication Wholesalers Association and the Japan Small Press and Regional Publications Distributing Center Ltd. who carry out deposit work for the NDL.
The result of a sample survey with Jihi shuppan nenkan, a yearbook of self-published books published by Sanraizu Shuppan was about 70%, which was higher than we had expected. This is because in some cases authors or publishers donate their publications to us. Another reason is that, particularly in recent years, more self-published books have been delivered through wholesale distributing agents.

(2) Periodicals and newspapers

According to a sample survey using Japan's periodicals in print, a total catalog of periodicals and newspapers edited by Media Research Center Inc., the deposit rate was 85% on title basis and 72% on volume (issued in 2005) basis. Due to the short-term distribution of periodicals and newspapers, some of them are already unavailable when we order missing issues. When limiting the scope to the periodicals begun in 2005, the rate was about 60%. If we exclude the kinds of materials which we are not willing to collect such as pornographic materials, the rate went up to 70%. On the other hand, a somewhat lower deposit rate compared with that of books is likely caused by an increasing number of publications not commercially distributed including free publications and others.

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(3) Audio-visual materials

A sample survey with HY-SFY published by Ongaku Shuppansha Co., Ltd, a Japanese trade catalog of audio-visual materials, showed the deposit rate was about 40%. There are various versions with music CDs and DVDs such as a first limited edition and a standard edition. Therefore, the actual rate may be higher than the figure. We started to call for the related organizations to deposit materials to raise the deposit rate, as the rate is lower than for other kinds of materials such as books.

(*3) means materials available through agents.

The result of a sample survey for materials edited by universities, utilizing the Webcat Plus of the National Institute of Informatics, a catalog of books and journals held in university libraries throughout Japan, was 78%. Viewed by university type, the rate of private universities was slightly higher than that of national and public universities. Serials including university bulletins were mostly deposited whereas the deposit rate of irregularly issued materials such as lecture reports was lower. We also found that the deposit rate of materials edited by faculties of science and engineering, medicine and pharmacy was lower compared with that of arts and social faculties.

On the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the legal deposit system, we will strive to gain public awareness of the system to raise the deposit rate of publications in Japan, looking at further improvement of the NDL services.

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