Library and Information Science

The Japan Medical Library Association has published Union Catalogue of Foreign Books in the Libraries of Japanese Medical Schools during 1946 and 1953, which represents the holdings of 15 medical schools as of March 1946. This book-form union catalogue lists about 44,000 titles of medical and related subject fields.

The Association continues the compilation of the union catalogue in card form since 1964 at Keio University, Medical School. The number of member libraries has increased to 79.

Over 60 member libraries are now reporting yearly amounting to 20,000 (in 1975, 27,916 from 79 libraries) cards. The Medical Literature Center, responsible unit for the compilation located in Keio University Medical School, is suffering from ever increasing tasks.

It has now three main files, divided by imprint dates, namely before 1946, 1966 and after 1965, each consisting of approximately 4,600; 41,400; and 31,000 cards respectively. There are also several other files, divided by the types of publication.

Because of the ambiguity of related subject fields, and the lack of recent publication on the scope of the union catalogue, etc., a pile of out-of-scope cards is unavoidable. Differences of acquisition policies and cataloguing practices among the member libraries make the coordination extraordinarily difficult, though the situation now has become better than in 1964.

The writer analyses the growth of the Union Catalog of U.S. Library of Congress and explains how the policy change was necessary in 1967. He further analyses the problems of Japanese union catalogue of foreign medical literature and gives some suggestions for its betterment.