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Purpose: Over 80% percent of university libraries in Japan had installed a library automation system by 1994, and 99% percent had become computerized by 2002. Today, many university libraries use the internet and digital resources to provide user-oriented library services, having become electronic libraries to a greater or lesser extent. Library automation systems are the basis for developing user-oriented library services. From the viewpoint of library staff, this paper examines current approaches to library automation issues of book acquisition, book cataloging and circulation. Methods: Two focus group interviews were conducted with two groups of six university librarians. The librarians discussed issues such as their impressions, effects, and the future of library automation. By focusing on the cause-and-effect relationship arid adversary relationship embedded into each utterance expressed during the interviews, the study attempted to identify themes that emerged during the discussions.Results: Problems of library automation were categorized into ten groups. A conceptual diagram of the framework of the problems was created from the data of the focus group interviews. Regarding the effects and problems of library automation, the study found the following three points: (1) promoting labor-saving and functional advancements, (2) libraries losing their power, and (3) imperfect packages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Efforts have been made to improve the OPACs by collocating bibliographic records sharing the same "work" and navigating users among records under a certain "work," according to the Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR). This paper investigates methods of automatically identifying "works," i.e., grouping bibliographic records sharing the same work, for the JAPAN/MARC records, which are typical Japanese bibliographic records created and maintained by libraries in Japan. It reports the extent to which records can be automatically identified as member of a particular work and also which of the possible methods are effective. Methods: The method used in this study is to generate work identification keys for each work represented in a bibliographic record and then to bring the keys representing the same works together. The keys are in principle constructed as a combination of an author name and a title from the record. Several methods of generating such keys were examined and the clustering of keys was executed for each method. The clusters built automatically were evaluated by comparing them with the sample correct sets built manually. Results: The results of the experiment show that the proposed method is effective in average cases; however, the performance depends on the characteristics of works, for example, the volume of records sharing the same work, whether anonymous or not, and whether uniform titles exist. It also shows that it is effective to generate keys for every bibliographic hierarchical level with data elements such as author headings, statements of responsibility, descriptive titles, and title headings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: In recent years, "a work" is attracting attention as an entity for information retrieval. This paper investigates associations of works which are called "bibliographic family" represented in the Japanese library catalog. Methods: To investigate bibliographic families in the Japanese library catalog, a survey was conducted using a random sample from J-BISC. Research questions were: 1) what proportion of works in the Japanese library catalog have derivative works, 2) how populous each bibliographic family is, 3) how frequently each type of derivative relationship appears, and 4) whether there are unique characteristics of bibliographic relationships in Japan compared with studies from other countries. From J-BISC, 669 works that had been recorded up to January 2005 were extracted as the sample. To search for members of bibliographic families, NDL-OPAC and Webcat Plus was used. To investigate the characteristics of bibliographic families of works in the Japanese library catalog, the results of previous studies were compared and examined. Results: The survey results show that 1) 2 5.9% of works in the sample have derivative works, 2) the average size of bibliographic families in the sample is 1.80, and 3) successive relationships account for 63.6% of all types of derivative relationships. Based on these results, networks of bibliographic families really exist, and so it is valid to use the links to improve the library catalog. From a comparison with five previous studies in the U.S. and Slovenia, the phenomenon of works which are called bibliographic families is free from locality and language, and shows "universality." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to examine the prospects for library services actively adopting the trend of administrative reform. Initially the paper takes a general view of the argument concerning "Decentralization" at the national level and "New Public Management" at the regional level in order to clarify the existence of a citizens' sector as one of the principal points at issue in both reforms. The second section gives an account of the fact that in administrative reforms after 1990s citizens are regarded not only as beneficiaries of public services, but also as suppliers. This section also explains the concept of "Governance" which explains the aforementioned fact. Where the concept of "Governance" was applied to provision of public service, various social actors including citizens' sector would be placed on an equal footing with administrations when providing public services. In conclusion, the author advocates that to apply the concept of "Governance" as one of the best options for thinking about the provision of library services, under a framework which regards the directionality of administrative reform as "from Government to Governance." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]