Library and Information Science

Based on data collected in 1965–67 on the structural organization of a total of 363 college and university libraries in Japan of which 74 are Governmentally supported, 36 municipally and 253 privately, an analytical and comparative study was carried out. Analysis of their organization revealed that these college and university libraries fall into the following thirteen groups:

1. Type I: Only one library unit exists in the entire institution with no branches or other subordinate units.
2. Type II: Plural library units administratively decentralized, each of them an independent unit.
3. Type III: Plural library units, each of them enjoying branch library status; the main library underdeveloped.
4. Type IV: Plural library units; the director (part-time) of the central main library administering branches through the branch directors (part-time); centralized as a matter of form.
5. Type V: Plural library units; administratively centralized.
6. Intermediate of Types III and IV.
7. Intermediate of Types IV and V.
8. Combination of Types IV and V.
9. Combination of Types II and IV.
10. Combination of Types II and V.
11. Combination of Type II and Intermediate of Types III and IV.
12. Combination of Type II and Intermediate of Types IV and V.
13. Combination of Type II and Intermediate of Types IV and V.
14. Combination of Types II, IV and V.

Of the total of 363 institutions, 234 (64.4%) belong to Type I, or the mono-library system, 12 (3.3%) are Type II, or decentralized, 40 (11%) are Type IV, or semi-centralized, 38 (10%) are Type V, or centralized, and the rest are intermediate forms or combinations of Types II, III, IV, and/or V. To illustrate the changing nature of the organizational structure of a library in dynamic action, the changes in the past two decades in the organizational pattern of the Medical Library of Keio University were examined and described.