1. Discussion and report by the Legal Deposit System Research Council
2. Discussion and report by the Legal Deposit System Council
3. Legislation for collecting Internet information
4. Latest consultation with the Council and their discussions

<Outline of the report of the Legal Deposit System Council "Concept of the Acquisition System for Online Publications" >

The National Diet Library (NDL) collects publications issued in Japan based on the legal deposit system. For the sake of improvement and proper operation of the system, the Legal Deposit System Council consisting of external experts is set up as an advisory organization for the Librarian of the NDL.

On June 7, 2010, at its 19th meeting, the Council compiled a report that e-books and e-magazines and journals provided on the Internet by the private sector should be collected by the NDL. This article outlines the background and the contents of the report.

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The deposit of electronic publications to the NDL was first discussed by the Legal Deposit System Research Council, predecessor of the present Legal Deposit System Council. In February 1999, the Council submitted a report about the optimal legal deposit system for the 21^st century. Based on this report, “offline electronic publications” including CD-ROMs started to be covered by the legal deposit system from 2000. The report said, however, “networked electronic publications,” which have no physical form, should be excluded from the system and among that kind of publications, those as useful as the conventional publications should be collected through agreements or by other means. Later, since April 2002, the NDL launched a project to collect Internet resources selectively according to individual agreements.

After that, the amount of information on the Internet saw a tremendous increase. The NDL determined that in order to collect and preserve this information efficiently it was necessary to reexamine the matter with a view to constructing a new system, and in March 2002 consulted the Council as to the “possibility to cover networked electronic publications issued in Japan by the legal deposit system.” Along with this, the library asked the Council to examine and discuss the scope of publications and the acquisition method, in case they are not to be covered by the legal deposit system.

On December 9, 2004, the report of the Council “Concept of the acquisition system for networked electronic publications” was submitted after examination and discussion in the two subcommittees of the Council. The report said that it was appropriate not to include networked electronic publications in the legal deposit system, because it was difficult to fit them to the basic requirements of the legal deposit system: obligation of publishers to make their publications reach the NDL; exhaustiveness of collection without any selection by contents; imposition of deposit on publishers.

On that basis, the Council presented the scope and method of acquisition, copyright, compensation for loss and other issues when networked electronic publications are collected through a system other than legal deposit. It was recommended for the NDL to draw up a plan according to the report but at its own discretion and to implement it in stages by securing necessary resources, paying attention at the same time to the issue of free speech on the networks, that is, a possible chilling effect on it.

• ฺRelated article: Report of the Legal Deposit System Council -- Optimal Acquisition System for "Networked" Electronic Publications (NDL Newsletter, No. 143, June 2005)
• ฺExplanation of the NDL website including the whole text of the report

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The NDL started to design a system according to the report and conducted hearings with the general public, associations of right holders, and others. However, it failed to gain the understanding about collection of Internet information of private sector and individuals. Therefore, it sought the understanding of related institutions about its policy to collect Internet information of public institutions such as departments of central and local governments, independent administrative agencies and others. In 2009 the National Diet Library Law was amended and the collection of the Internet information provided by public institutions started in April 2010.

While on the network there are many publications which are not issued and distributed by public institutions, there is no system for the NDL to collect them. Therefore, on October 13, 2009, the Librarian of the NDL, Makoto Nagao, consulted with the chairman of the Legal Deposit System Council at its 17^th meeting as to the “optimal system for collecting information equivalent to the items mentioned in Paragraph 1, Article 24 of the National Diet Library Law such as books and serials, out of information made available on the Internet by private persons stipulated in Article 25 of the same law.”

While the collection of the Internet information of public institutions launched in FY2010 with the amendment of the National Diet Library Law targets all the information available on the Internet, this consultation aims to ask for an appropriate system for collecting information equivalent to conventional books and periodicals, defining them as “online publications” by making a clear distinction from other kinds of information such as websites.

For the purpose of examination and discussions for this consultation, a Subcommittee on the Acquisition of Online Publications was established under the Legal Deposit System Council. After having three meetings, the subcommittee presented its report “Interim report about acquisition of online publications” at the 18^th Council meeting on March 22, 2010.

At the 19^th meeting, based on the interim report of the subcommittee, the Council unanimously approved its report, which was submitted to the Librarian Dr. Nagao on the same day.

The report recommends that the NDL collect online publications such as e-books and e-magazines and journals, that is, items equivalent to conventional books and periodicals, among networked electronic publications provided by the private sector, through a system other than the legal deposit system. Please see the outline of the report in this article.

*The whole text (in Japanese) of the report is available on the NDL website [PDF, about 1MB]: http://www.ndl.go.jp/jp/aboutus/data/s_toushin_5.pdf

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Image of systematic collection of online publications

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1. Definition of Online Publications

The online publications herein are defined as “information available via the Internet etc. and equivalent to books and periodicals”; information equivalent to books and periodicals refers to a similar concept since this information is not tangible. In relation to the reasons for the consultation, the online publications examined hereafter are publications which are issued via the Internet etc. through the same editorial process as in conventional publications, that is, different types of publications from web information or broadcast programs.

2. Scope of the Online Publications to be Acquired

(1) Distinction between Online Publications and Other Materials
Online publications are distinguishable to a certain degree from other “networked electronic publications” such as web information or broadcast programs for the following reasons: they differ from tangible materials in the way that the National Diet Library (NDL) collects them by recording on recording media; not included in Internet resources offered by public institutions such as national government agencies, which the Library can collect under the amended National Diet Library Law since April 2010; limited to “information equivalent to books and periodicals.”

For acquisition, some actions should be taken such as drawing up a guideline showing typical examples of online publications.

(2) Online Publications and Printed Publications
Acquirable materials are not restricted to publications which are issued only online, considering the burden of confirming if the material has a paper version, and of investigating if the online material has different contents from its paper version.

(3) Significance of Price
Online publications should be collected whether with or without charge, pursuant to the Library’s acquisition purpose: “to contribute to the accumulation and utility of cultural goods” stipulated in Article 25 of the National Diet Library Law.

(4) Existence of the “Editorial Process”
Although there are online publications which go through quite different editorial processes from paper publications, it is reasonable to select online publications to collect by the criterion of whether they went “through the same editorial process as in conventional publications” or not.

(5) Databases and Variable Publications
Regarding databases, each content itself can be an object of acquisition, but database systems are not. Neither are variable publications, in which data are frequently updated or changed, since they are extremely simple compared with printed publications.

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3. Acquisition Objects

(1) Publisher / Place of Publication
Online publications transmitted from a sender living or located in Japan can be collected. Those collected with the automatic collection software the NDL uses, or harvested by the web crawler, should have their server to be reproduced in Japan.

At the present time, online publications are mainly distributed via the Internet; however the technology in this area is developing so rapidly that it is not appropriate to restrict their circulation route to the Internet.

(2) External Definition
Generally, books and periodicals have their own bibliographic data such as title, authors, published date etc., which enable us to identify them as independent units. The existence of these data can be a criterion of selection.

(3) Restriction by Contents
The idea in the Legal Deposit System that the NDL should collect all materials without judging their value or making a selection based on the contents should be continued.

(4) Minimum Unit of the Materials to be Acquired
Online publications can be published as an independent unit, for example one chapter of a book or each article of periodicals. Each of those can be an object of acquisition. However, if the complete version is obviously collectable, partial information should be excluded from the scope of the acquisition.

(5) Best Edition in Online Publications
Online publications having the same externals such as date of creation or data volume would be the same version, and the first registered can be regarded as the best edition. If not, however, they generally must be viewed as different works which should be collected individually.

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4. Acquisition of Online Publications

(1) Harvesting by Web Crawler and Sending
Online publications can be collected mainly by transmission from the information sender, and if technically possible, harvested automatically by the web crawler.

(2) Persons under Obligation
The person under obligation concerning acquisition of online publications should be a person who makes the online publications available to the public via the Internet etc.

(3) Formats of Online Publications
There are two possible cases when collecting by transmission from the sender: transmission in distributed format; transmission in some standard format after conversion. In order to preserve the integrity of a publication, it is important to transmit it in the same format as when published; from the perspective of use and long-term preservation of online publications, on the other hand, there is a possible way that the sender converts and transmits them in the standard format designated by the NDL. If harvesting by the web crawler, the NDL should, in principle, collect online publications by reproducing them exactly as they are on a server.

(4) Metadata Assignment
It is desirable to assign appropriate metadata to online publications for identification, use, search, preservation and management.

5. Envisaged Use

(1) Use inside the Library Facility
Inside the facility, the online publications are basically envisaged to be used in the same way as the tangible library materials. There ought to be restrictions on the number of people who can simultaneously access the identical content.

(2) Use of Text Data by Persons with Visual Disabilities
The NDL should make a comfortable environment where persons with visual disabilities can use the online publications pursuant to the “Guideline on reproduction of works based on Paragraph 3, Article 37 of the Copyright Law in the library services for persons with disabilities.”

(3) Issues relating to the Copyright Law and Others
When recording on recording media, restricting the right of reproduction under the law would be needed. In addition, it would be necessary to examine the relationship to other regulations of the Copyright Law and the Unfair Competition Prevention Law.

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6. Compensation for Acquisition and Use

(1) “Compensation”
It is difficult to apply mutatis mutandis the idea of “compensation” for “expenses for the issue” to online publications since they do not have the process of “printing and binding” nor the concept of “circulation figure.”

(2) Economic Losses Incurred Due to Use
In the manner of use of tangible library materials, such as reading, reproduction and inter-library loan, compensation for economic losses is not required, and likewise not for the online publications as long as they are used in the manner referred to in “5. Envisaged Use” since the degree of the economic losses would be extremely slight.

(3) Expenses for Procedure Pertaining to Deposit
In case of acquisition by transmission, the expenses needed for format conversion, cancellation of digital rights management (DRM) protection, creation of metadata and procedure for transmission appear to be equivalent to “the expenses usually required for the deposit” stipulated in Paragraph 3, Article 25 of the NDL Law.

7. Concluding Comments

The NDL, which preserves and accumulates cultural assets, needs to gradually and steadily work on collecting these online publications as part of its mission, even when the resources are limited.

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