Public Services Department

This article is a translation of the article in Japanese of the same title
in NDL Monthly Bulletin No. 599 (February 2011).

Periodicals such as magazines and newspapers are generally called "serials" in libraries. The National Diet Library (NDL) defines as serials "publications intended to be issued under the same title, numbered in order of volume, year or month, and with no predetermined conclusion" (National Diet Library Detailed Regulations for Materials Management) that are published more than once a year. Among them, materials meeting all of the following three requirements are treated as newspapers, and others as magazines: 1) over 36cm in size, 2) not bound but only folded and 3) having (an) article(s) on the cover, and the cover and texts are printed on the same type of paper. The classification of materials changes some with time; for example, annuals and yearbooks accessioned in and after 1986 are grouped into periodicals, while they were classified as books until 1985.

Such changes make it extremely difficult for us to tell exactly on how many periodicals there are in the NDL. In addition, there can be different versions of a periodical such as a reprinted edition, a large print edition, converted microfilms, and in recent years, a digital edition. According to the collection statistics at the end of March 2009, periodicals comprise 25% and serials (including newspapers) 37% of the total materials of about 37 million items¹(Figure 1).

Figure 1: Ratio of serials among all collection items (FY2009)

The NDL holds a total of about 9.3 million volumes of periodicals: About 6 million volumes published in Japan and about 3.3 million volumes published overseas (see the table below).

Table: Number of total collection and accession per year of periodicals (in volumes)
(From the statistics in the Annual Report of the National Diet Library FY2009)

There are about 150 thousand titles of periodicals in Japanese and about 64 thousand in foreign languages, of which eight thousand titles are in Asian languages.

Figure 2: Transition of the holding titles of serials (periodicals and newspapers)

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2.1 Japanese periodicals
The periodicals collection of the NDL consists of items previously owned by the House of Peers and the House of Representatives in the former Imperial Diet and the Imperial Library (including its predecessor and successor) from the Meiji era (1868-1912) to the early Showa era (1926-1989), collections donated by institutions and individuals or purchased, and those acquired after the establishment of the NDL.

Though periodicals submitted for the censorship under the Newspaper Ordinance (1875), which was taken over by the Newspaper Law in 1909, were delivered (transferred) from the Ministry of Home Affairs to the Imperial Library, the delivery terminated later and the most of the necessary periodicals and newspapers were acquired by purchase and donation². However, as periodicals and newspapers rapidly increased from the Meiji to the early Showa eras, it seems that the Library could not keep up with them. A study shows the holding rate of the Imperial Library for major periodicals distributed in 1938 was around 30%³ ; even so, over four thousand titles of periodicals remain in the NDL.

Though the NDL was established and the Legal Deposit System, which mandates that copies of all the publications published in Japan must be sent to the NDL, started in 1948, it took a certain time for the system to get on the right track, and there seem to be many publications of this period missing. Meanwhile, Japanese publications were censored by the Allied Occupation forces from 1945 to 1949. Publications censored can be read in microforms of the "Gordon W. Prange Collection" in the Modern Japanese Political History Materials Room of the Tokyo Main Library. The Prange Collection consists of publications transferred to the University of Maryland, U.S.A. after censorship by Prof. Gordon W. Prange, a professor of history of the university who worked as an official historian in the historical division of the Allied Occupation forces and recognized the importance of the publications. The NDL has been converting to microfilms and digitizing the Prange Collection since 1992. The microfiches of periodicals of the Prange Collection contain approximately 13,800 titles⁴of the time (including community magazines from all over the country).

Later, the NDL achieved stable acquisition thanks to various efforts regarding the Legal Deposit System.

These days, as stated above, the reprinted edition of periodicals is released in CD-ROMs, the publication medium changes from paper to the Internet, and the digital edition of diverse periodicals appears. In 2000, offline electronic publications on tangible media such as CD-ROMs became subject to the Legal Deposit System. As for information on networks, the NDL started to collect Internet resources of public institutions like government organizations in April 2010. In June 2010, the Legal Deposit System Council submitted a report that e-books and e-magazines provided on the Internet by the private sector and equivalent to conventional publications should be collected by the NDL⁵ .

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2.2 Foreign periodicals
The NDL selectively collects periodicals published overseas according to the Policy for Acquisition of Materials. Foreign publications are collected by purchase, exchange with foreign libraries and research institutions (international exchange), deposit and donation. Most of the foreign periodicals including those in Asian languages are stored

in the Kansai-kan of the NDL⁶. E-journals have been provided in the Tokyo Main Library and Kansai-kan since 2002, and approximately 26,000 titles were available at the end of December 2010.

Photo2: E-journals are provided on the dedicated terminals in the Library

The NDL has endeavored to acquire foreign periodicals on science and technology, in order to develop a foundation for the science and technology information of the nation. Collection of science and technology information started in 1953 when the NDL asked for the cooperation of nuclear-power related institutions around the world on the advice of experts such as Dr. Hideki Yukawa, and collected academic periodicals on science and technology. The NDL has developed the collection since then, but the number of purchases of periodicals in printed form has been getting smaller due to the soaring price of foreign periodicals and e-journals in recent years. The current challenge is to provide the necessary information within the limited budget, in view of the balance between e-journals and prints.

2.3 Children's periodicals
The International Library of Children's Literature (ILCL) was founded in 2000 as a special library of children's literature to broadly collect, preserve and provide children's books and related materials from home and abroad. The NDL treats periodicals mainly targeting readers aged 18 or younger as children's. (Please note that most of manga magazines are kept in the Tokyo Main Library.) There are many children's periodicals published from the Meiji and the early Showa eras that have not been collected, and the

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Unlike monographs, periodicals alter in various ways after their start as in changing titles or frequency of publication, combining with another periodical (or separating into two periodicals) as well as suspension, cessation and revival. Bibliographic data of periodicals are always updated to keep up with these changes: In our catalog, NDL-OPAC (National Diet Library Online Public Access Catalog), ⁷ bibliographic data which are connected to other periodicals in terms of title change, separation and combination, etc. are made easy to cross-reference for better retrievability.

Another point where periodicals and monographs differ is that they need storage space in the same area of the stacks to avoid each number being separated or lost. The NDL systematically uses the stacks by calculating required storage space considering the frequency of publication.

As many periodicals are made of easily deteriorating acid paper, and are fragile due to simplified bindings, the NDL binds some issues together into one item so as not to damage or lose materials (excluding thick ones). Bound volumes have a firm cover for long-term use and presercation, and a clear title indication on the spine which helps find them on the shelves.

Photo3: Periodical whose stapled
cover is separating

Photo4: Firmly bound materials

In these thirty years, periodicals in the NDL have seen a rapid increase of photocopy requests. With their deteriorability and the firm bindings mentioned above, it sometimes happens that it is not safe to reproduce them with copiers. Since 1973, the NDL has been reformatting its periodicals to achieve a good balance between use and preservation. The main converting measure was microfilming until the NDL determined to shift onto digitization in FY 2009, and currently a mass digitization project is under way. The scope of this project embraces periodicals published from the Showa era to 2000 (partly including those of the Meiji and Taisho eras) which are extremely deteriorated or listed in the Japanese Periodicals Index; they amount to about 12 thousand titles.They are planned to be provided as digital data after the summer of 2011.

Photo5: Already digitized periodicals from Meiji to early Showa eras

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Periodicals are sometimes likened to mirrors that reflect the age of publicaton. They often show the latest technology of their time in their publication methods and styles, and at the same time they are indispensable materials to show the opinions and customs of the day. The NDL continues various efforts to preserve periodicals for many years to come, and make them available any time.

¹These statistics categorize the digital edition of periodicals and newspapers as "non-book materials."

²Hisanori Tanaka, "旧帝国図書館の和雑誌収集をめぐって 『雑誌』メディアと納本制度 (Collection of Japanese periodicals by the former Imperial Library: Periodical media and the Legal Deposit System)," Sanko Shoshi Kenkyu (参考書誌研究), (36) 1989. 8 pp.1-21 (The text (in Japanese) is available on the NDL website [PDF, 1.82MB]: http://rnavi.ndl.go.jp/bibliography/tmp/36-03.pdf)
³ibid.

⁴Searchable through the "Search for Materials on the Allied Occupation of Japan" in NDL-OPAC
⁵Report of the Legal Deposit System Council "Concept of the acquisition system for online publications" June 7, 2010, (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) The Council is set up as an advisory organization for the Librarian of the NDL for the purpose of improvement and appropriate operation of the Legal Deposit System. Related article: "To collect online publications" NDL Newsletter, No. 176, December 2010/February 2011 (http://www.ndl.go.jp/en/publication/ndl_newsletter/176/767.html)

⁶Part of Asian language periodicals and newspapers are also held in the Tokyo Main Library.
NDL is striving to acquire them. Some of them are contained in the above-mentioned Prange collection.

⁷https://ndlopac.ndl.go.jp/eng/