Library and Information Science

This study is concerned with the number of Japanese scientists contributed to the scientific journals which are in world-wide circulation, in order to grasp an actual situation of their international contribution.

Among the total number of Japanese scientists, 14,532, which are printed in the Who is Publishing in Sciences, 1977, the scientists of universities and colleges are 10,375, 33 per institution, and 71%; commercial companies and special coporations, 5.8 per institution, 16%; and research institutions including governmental and private bodies, 4.6 per institution, 13%. The latter two groups account for nearly 30% of the total number surveyed. In the figure shared by the different school groups, the 7 ex-Teidai (Imperial university) group including the University of Tokyo takes the top seat, and the national university group including the Tokyo Institute of Technology and the Hiroshima University occupies in the second place, so that they exceed any other educational institution including private universities and colleges. The Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute and the Institute of Physical and Chemical Research rank highest among the research institution group. The Japan Telegram and Telephone Public Coporation Research Laboratories is the top, and are followed by the Hitachi Ltd. and the Toshiba Ltd. among the commercial companies and special coporation group.

The numbers and percentages shared by the cities where those scientists lives in are as follows: 4,179 (28.8%) in Tokyo, 975 (6.7%) in Kyoto, 832 (5.7%) in Nagoya, 775 (5.3%) in Osaka, 768 (5.3%) in Sendai, 621 (4.3%) in Fukuoka, and 529 (3.6%) in Sapporo. These seven cities account for about 6090 of the total number surveyed in this study and these are the location of the ex-Teidais.

The subject fields which have a large amount of those contributing authors are biology, medicine, chemistry, physics, and technology.

In this study, the author grasped some tendencies which major research activities in Japan have been mainly done by the scientists of the national universities being led by the ex-Teidais, the national policy directed institutions which are represented by the Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute and the Japan Telegram and Telephone Public Corporation Research Laboratories, and some big electronic commercial companies, for example, the Hitachi Ltd. and the Toshiba Ltd., and moreover, top leading scientists distribute overwhelmingly in these institutions.