Symposium "Towards the Reform of Scholarly Information Distribution : Electronic journal will not be able to be read, 2" held

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.