The number of participants has been increasing and totaled 87 libraries of 79 Japanese organizations (57 libraries of 49 national universities, 2 libraries of 2 public universities, 25 libraries of 25 private universities, and 3 libraries of 3 inter-university research institutes) and 34 libraries of 33 North American universities as of October 15, 2003.
The book loan service was launched on August 1, 2003 as the result of the discussion in the Japan-US joint meeting on the evaluation of the document delivery service. In response to it, the Project Team called for Japanese participants in GIF project to participate this book loan service and requested them to add items for the book loan service to their lending policies.
The book loan service is participated by 34 libraries of 32 Japanese universities (29 libraries of 27 national universities and 5 libraries of 5 private universities) and 17 libraries of 17 North American universities.
The contact point of the US side was changed from ARL to NCC. The actual loan service has not yet started because NCC has not been able to make up the lending policies of the US participants.
The Japan-US joint meeting on the evaluation of the document delivery service was held on July 1, 2003 and the following people attended it: representing the US side, Ms Mary E. Jackson and Ms. Sachie Noguchi; Assistant President Tutiya (Chief Project Manager of the Ad-Hoc Committee on International Scholarly Communication) and the GIF Project members as representatives of ANUL; Chief Executive Kato (Keio University Library), as a representative of the Japanese Coordinating Committee for University Libraries); Prof. Miyazawa (National Institute of Informatics); the staffs concerning the Project. They exchanged opinions about a launch plan of the book loan service agreed on January 13, analysis of the CANCEL records in the document photocopying service, and whether libraries in the countries other than North America which want to participate the GIF Project should be accepted into the project.
As a result of the discussion, the following agreements were made: both sides prepare to launch the book loan service on August 1; both sides make an effort to resolve the situation which caused the cancellation of document photocopying orders; libraries in the countries other than Japan and North America which want to participate the project will be accept into the project based on the concept of the project if they fill the condition for the participants (i.e. participating NII or OCLC ILL system and using OCLC ILL Fee Management [IFM] service).
While a discussion between KERIS and NII has been continuing, a representative of KERIS made a proposal to discuss realizing ILL between Japan and Korea to the GIF Project. In response to this proposal, the GIF Project Team had a meeting with NII to inquire the status of system development at NII and the progress of the discussion with KERIS on September 8. As a result of the meeting, it was decided that the Project Team informs KERIS about the issues which should be confirmed before a discussion on the connection will be made, and that NII clarifies the schedule of the system development.
The Project Manager, Associate University Librarian Sasakawa (University of Tokyo) notified the representative of KERIS that ANUL had received the proposal for the discussion.
The Project Team shall make a discussion including a schedule of the connection with KERIS as taking the system development at NII into account.
The Project Team notified their request about a GIF workshop for improving the skill of international ILL staffs to the Ad-Hoc Committee on Education Program. As a result, a workshop is scheduled to hold in this November and the GIF Project Team will dispatch lecturers to the workshop.