As part of its library support projects, the National Diet Library (NDL) conducts a research study on libraries and library and information science every year. In fiscal 2008, we chose as the theme “e-books,” which have been rapidly expanding their market and attracting social interest in recent years, and carried out a research by a study group composed of four experts to find out the situation of the distribution, use and preservation. This article introduces the current situation and issues of the distribution, use and preservation of e-books based on a reporting seminar of the research study, held in the Tokyo Main Library (and also broadcast live in the Kansai-kan) on March 9, 2009.

The size of the e-book market has nearly doubled every year since the first survey conducted in 2002 (eBook marketing report, Impress R&D / Internet Media Research Institute, published since 2003 ). In the context of such market growth, news on e-books became active among library communities in Japan in 2007. Several university libraries and public libraries, under contract requiring a fee, started a service to provide users with e-books in Japanese via the Internet before the end of their copyright protection period. In addition, “mobile phone novels,” novels which are provided on mobile phone networks, became popular mainly among young people, and paper books transformed from these mobile phone novels topped the fiction bestseller list.

Under such circumstances, the NDL conducted a research study on the current situation of the distribution, use and preservation of e-books in Japan using literature researches, questionnaires and interviews.

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What is an e-book?
What does the word “e-book” mean? Dr. Toshihiko Yuasa, associate professor of Shukugawa Gakuin College, explained that “e-book” was hard to define and grasp its nature. What are called “e-books” include paper books scanned and provided for PCs and mobile phones; electronic dictionaries used on dedicated devices; born-digital publications originated in digital media such as “mobile phone novels”; rare books and other materials digitized by the owning libraries. It is very difficult to identify all the websites that sell e-books even only for PCs and mobile phones, and the same titles of e-books are sometimes sold on several websites. Dr. Yuasa also pointed out that existing statistics on e-books were compiled using information from several websites that sold e-books, and therefore we needed to keep in mind that numerous e-books were not included in the statistics.

In view of the current industry situation and the connection with libraries, the research mainly focuses on (1) e-books which were digitized from paper publications and sold for use on PCs and mobile phones, and (2) born-digital mobile phone novels and other e-books, of which popular ones are sometimes printed and published in paper form. It also mentions e-book services such as the Aozora Bunko (freely accessible digital library of Japan) and Google Book Search as necessary in analyzing the change of the environment surrounding e-books.

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In the process from creating an e-book to delivering it to readers, people are involved who are different from those handling paper books. For the sale of e-books digitized from paper books, related enterprises are as follows: publishers of the original books in paper form, contents providers which digitize the books and provide them, mobile-phone carriers which register the websites made by the contents providers as an official site for mobile phones and manage their sales, etc. The research study reports the history of how each enterprise has been involved in e-books mainly based on literature study, and seeks to find out how the current situation and issues are recognized by each enterprise, using questionnaire surveys and interviews.

According to the research paper on the history of e-books written by Dr. Yuasa, the publication in electronic media in Japan began in 1985 with a CD-ROM version of Dictionary of Science and Technology published by Sanshusha Publishing Co., Ltd. After its release, publishers began to publish the CD-ROM version of dictionaries and encyclopedias, and the publication of DVD-ROMs with much larger capacity appeared around 2000. In parallel with the sales of e-books on physical carriers, the e-book download service via the Internet was started in 2000 by major eight publishing companies intended for the use on PCs and “personal digital assistances” (PDAs). In 2004, the Matsushita Electric Industrial Company (now Panasonic Corporation) and Sony Corporation released special terminals for reading e-books, and a number of publishers started to offer contents for the terminals. However, such terminals were forced to cease production because of the stagnant sales, and taking their place, e-books available on a mobile phone, portable music player and portable game machine have spread since around 2007.

In response to such changes, contents providers which digitize books to be used on various devices, and mobile-phone carriers which manage the sales of e-books for mobile phones, have been playing an increasing role. According to eBook marketing report 2008, the sales of e-books for mobile phones accounted for approximately 80 percent of the total e-book sales including e-books for PCs. The number of websites which sell e-books and mobile-phone carriers registered as official websites reached to more than 600 in December 2008.

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Mr. Masaaki Hagino, President of Voyager Japan, Inc., analyzed how the three types of e-books—for mobile phones, for PCs and for mobile information terminals such as “smart phone (mobile phone with portable information terminal function)”, portable music player and portable game machine with communication function—were made and in what format and under what business model they were offered. In his analysis he pointed out that the printing companies which had handled the production of paper books before participated in the distribution of e-books by setting up contents providers to produce and deliver e-books or offering capital to contents providers. Now most paper books are printed and formed based on electronic data, so making e-books by converting them is thought to have an advantage. Mr. Hagino also pointed out that venture companies and affiliate companies of IT companies in charge of selling e-books as well as these printing companies were developing their businesses.

Readers of e-books and Libraries
The market of e-books is expanding rapidly. Then, how are e-books used? Dr. Katsuichi Kita (Professor of the Graduate School for Creative Cities, Osaka City University) analyzed the use of e-books by individuals and organizations such as libraries while being conscious about business models. His remarks were as follows: As regards personal use, it was young women whose use rate of e-books with a mobile phone was high, and it was comics which were frequently used with mobile phones; As for organization use, it was common to make a lump contract of access privileges to the marketed e-book collection; most of the organizations which have this kind of contract were university libraries; all types of libraries were trying to digitize their collections to make them available.

In addition, he pointed out the rapid change in the distribution environment of e-books progressing mainly in the U.S.: Google Inc. was going ahead with the business model in which they offered e-books for a charge as Google Book Search and gave the sales back to the rights holders; Amazon.com, Inc. launched “Kindle2,” a new reading device for e-books, and immediately made it possible to use the contents for devices such as “iPhone,” a smart phone by Apple Inc. Dr. Kita also said it became clear from his original research that domestic libraries did not hold as many bestseller mobile phone novels printed and published in paper form as the other bestseller books. He expressed concern that libraries might be missing the change of environment and users in the case of e-books.

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To preserve e-books as cultural heritage
As noted above, most of the e-books which are distributed and used now are offered via the Internet and do not have tangible form. Mr. Hidehiko Nakanishi, Vice President of the Nakanishi Printing Company, clarified the current problems for the preservation of e-books through questionnaires and interviews to publishing companies, a questionnaire to the staff of the NDL, and others.

A paper book published more than 1,000 years ago is still available now. However, the availability of the format of e-books provided now and the machinery to use it is not guaranteed in future ages. E-books provided via the Internet are in danger of disappearing not only through situations such as damage to the system and server machinery but also through the bankruptcy and business abolition of the providing enterprise. Moreover mobile phone novels and others are often written, revised and deleted by the authors without record of modification.

Through the survey of publishing companies, it became clear that they were conscious of the long-term preservation of e-books only at the level of the backup of data. On the other hand, the questionnaire survey to the staff of the NDL showed many opinions conscious of the importance of long-term preservation of e-books and the necessity for libraries to be concerned it. In the Western countries, libraries already take a lead and carry out some projects to preserve electronic journals for the long term with the cooperation of publishing companies. Mr. Nakanishi analyzed such a situation and proposed that it was necessary to preserve e-books as cultural heritage for the long term in Japan, too, and there is no institution other than libraries to take the initiative. In addition, he pointed out the necessity of the periodical conversion (migration) of electronic data into the most suitable form, which is called “electronic shikinen sengu,” a term taken from Ise-jingu, the grand shrine in Ise city, which observes shikinen sengu (complete reconstruction of the main building of the shrine every twenty years) since the era of the Empress Jito of the 7th century.

In the closing address of this reporting seminar, Dr. Yuasa said he expected this research study to be one of the opportunities for publishing companies, contents providers, mobile phone carriers and libraries to build a cooperative relationship for readers and users of the future. In the ensuing question-and-answer session, there were many remarks: the influence of Google book search; the difference in domestic and foreign spread of reading devices for e-books; how to expand the e-book users; the gap between the e-book users and the library users; the possibility of universal services such as offering e-books to visually impaired people. These remarks showed what high and various interests the participants had.