The Japan Association of National University Libraries held a
symposium "Towards the Reform of Scholarly Information Distribution :
Electronic journals will not be able to be read, 2" in the University
of Tokyo on December 10, 2008. This was the second part of the
symposium held in May. About 150 participants who are senior
administrators of the national university libraries, were discussed
intensely on the issues of electronic journals.
After the opening address by Professor Kazuhiko Saigo, President of
JANUL, Professor Yoshito Ito, Director of Nagoya University Library,
made a keynote speech. He reported on the negotiation process after
May with several main overseas publishers publishing electronic
journals and appealed strongly the necessity of radical reexamination
of the subscriptions and specific actions to overcome the issues.
Next, Mr. Osamu Inoue, Director of Information Management Division,
Nagoya University, reported the latest cases of the reexamination of
joint purchase in the university libraries of the world. Professor
Sadao Uematsu, Director of Tsukuba University Library and Professor
Kenji Kato, Director of Shizuoka University Library, reported the
simulation results on the increase of subscription prices for the
electronic journals based on their actual subscription deal and
clarified the severe realities.
During the active exchange of opinions based on these reports,
Director Ito showed the several proposed options. Besides
continuously negotiating with the publishers with consideration
the diversity of universities, the strategy that each university
and the JANUL were able to take in the difficult circumstances
was proposed With this proposal, each library will do the
simulation similar to the anecdotal report of Tsukuba University
and Shizuoka University, and do specific actions to address
the present crisis situation.