Library and Information Science

Needs of the central library for lending service in Japan, and problems of six plans for the library are discussed.

In 1975, university member libraries of the Japan Medical Library Association (JMLA) processed 163,977 inter-library lending request, and this figure was 58.7% of a total of requests that all Japanese university libraries processed in the year. There are, however, many problems in the inter-library lending system in JMLA; (1) a growing amount of requests (annual rate of increase is about 20%), (2) the concentration of lending requests to some specific libraries and specific regions, (3) the shortage of the staff and holdings in the individual library, (4) the restriction on lending against non-member institutions.

After the World War II, some scientific information policies have been discussed, in which the following plans concerning the central library were proposed;

1. the Scientific Council of Japan: “the Information Centre” (1950),
2. the Scientific Council of Japan: “the Regional Scientific Information Centre” (1965),
3. the Council for Science and Technology: “NIST and its General Information Centre” (1969/1974),
4. the Scientific Research Council: “the National Library for Scientific Research” (1973),
5. the Council for Improvement of University Libraries: “the National Lending Library” (1974),
6. the Association of National University: “the Center for University Libraries” (1975)

The above plans have many problems; (1) in complicated relationship between the new library and the National Diet Library or the Japan Information Center of Science and Technology, (2) a small possibility of establishment of the library as national institute, (3) decision on the alternatives of mission oriented or general, (4) the anticipated restriction in use, and so on.