PRESENT SITUATION AND ISSUES OF THE
CONSORTIA OF
ELECTRONIC JOURNALS IN JAPAN
Yoshito Itoh
Vice President of Japan Association of National University Libraries
Director of the University Library
Administrative Council Member
Professor of Graduate School of Engineering
Nagoya University, Nagoya 464-8601, Japan
Email:itoh@nul.nagoya-u.ac.jp
ABSTRACTThe establishment of the electronic journal task force of the Japan Association of National
University Libraries (JANUL) was dealt with in the paper. There were a lot of issues to besolved when subscribing to electronic journals in the national universities in Japan. The
activities of the task force to build the consortia with large publishers were discussed indetail. The task force has now maintained the consortia having more than 12,000 full-text
electronic journals with about US$ 100 million in total. Most of the national universities
have joined the consortia. The issues remained were also discussed in the paper. In order tomaintain the consortia and build new ones the sustainability of the electronic task force of
JANUL should be considered. Furthermore, the new method of the scholarly information
distribution should be also established in near future.
INTRODUCTION
The university libraries stand at a historical turning point. In an advanced information
network society, some features like media uniformity, borderlessness, autonomous network,
cost obscurity can be found after the information digitization and “Internet Explosion.” Inthat society, we at the university libraries are required to change in an aspect of libraryfunctions and need to develop a hybrid library organically linking traditional and electronic
library functions.
On the other hand, dramatic changes of environment around the universities, in accordancewith the paradigm shift of social structure, so called the shift from the 20th-century-type to
21st-century-type society, has given way to the social change where a sense of value has
moved towards being environment-oriented or human-oriented from “economy-oriented” andled to the needs for the creation of new integrated academic fields, combining humanities
and social sciences and natural sciences. However, the administrative and fiscal reforms inJapan extended over to the universities, where 1) staff reduction, 2) library budget cut, 3)
pursuit of efficiency, i.e. corporate efforts and library economy, are all required.
In April 2004, the national universities were transformed into independent administrative
institutions (National University Corporation) and actually even our university libraries
have entered the age of “competition and cooperation.”
At this stage, we have faced the crisis of annually-rising prices by average 9 % and inflated
number of academic journals. We have fallen into a vicious spiral of declining librarybudgets and serial price hike, unsubscriptions and more price jump. Meanwhile, as theacademic journals started to be provided electronically and even needed more cost, we had to1

tackle the problem with the establishment of library consortia. The academic journals
electronization being accompanied by serial publishers’ overconcentration (oligopoly
situation), there is an urgent need or a prime task for our library side to conduct new
activities.
Consequently, we at the national university libraries in Japan has successfully establishednation-wide large-scale consortia and has enabled our subscriptions to over 12,000 titles ofelectronic journals with US$ 100 million1),2).
The consortia-forming process and problems at issue are indicated below.
BACKGROUND AND PROCESS OF ESTABLISHMENT OF ELECTRONIC JOURNALTASK FORCE IN THE JAPAN ASSOCIATION OF NATIONAL UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES(JANUL)
Background of EJ Task Force Foundation
The background for launching the Electronic Journal (EJ) Task Force is that EJ has beendeveloped and supplied at an accelerating pace and with its excellent features started totake more significant roles than print version as an academic information infrastructure, so
called “characteristic change of journals.”
In the meantime, large publishers began to propose to provide all titles on a per-publisher
basis instead of individual titles. The proposal was considered to have great potential as ameasure of making up for the decrease of net subscribed titles due to the journal price hike.
Advancement in use of journals and removal of a hurdle with user boundary were also big
appeals that EJ should have as a feature. EJ seemed to have the possibilities of bridging theinformation devide by getting rid of barriers among individual departments or universities.
The launching of EJ Task Force in JANUL is stated as follows.
In May 2000, directors of 7 national university libraries including me sent a petition
concerning Yen price issue and parallel import problem to the Elsevier Science. In July, forthe above petition, we received a reply from the Elsevier Science wishing for somediscussions.
In September, EJ Task Force was established in JANUL. At first, it was supposed toattain the goal for such a short period by June 2001. But, one-year extension was agreed
upon at the general assembly of JANUL in June 2001 and negotiations with the Elsevier
Science and other publishers would be continued. The Task Force is still now very active.
The purposes to launch the EJ Task Force are as follows.
1) To flexibly and promptly negotiate with the Elsevier Science, on behalf of JANUL,
moving towards the introduction of ScienceDirect (SD) into the national university libraries(including archiving experiment) and the contracts in fiscal 2002 and after based on
respective conditions.
2) To check EJ supplied by other publishers, aggregators etc. than the Elsevier Sciencefrom the same point of view and to negotiate with them if necessary.
3) To examine immediately-required measures against the change of scholarly
information distribution raised by the EJ introduction.
Members of the EJ Task Force consist of directors of 5 national university libraries (chief:
Prof. Yoshito Itoh, Director of the Nagoya University Library) and administrative associate
directors or division-heads of 7 university libraries, 13 members in total. It was created in
an unusual form as an organization in JANUL and aimed at its flexible operation. After that,it experienced member changes every year and has maintained the combination of library
directors and staff. In Japan, professors hold the post of library directors and could take astrong and resolute stance against any publishers as authors, reviewers, editors and readersof academic journals.

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Activities of EJ Task Force and Consortia
Main activities of EJ Task Force are chronologically shown below.
(1) EJ Task Force trial participants recruitment (September 2000)
45 applicants from 37 university libraries joined the Task Force at the first stage. After
that, some members were changed year by year. But main members are continuously active.
(2) Survey of all national university libraries
In September 2000, the first survey was done in national universities. SD-21 contracts
survey in 2000 and prospect in 2001, number of subscriptions and purchase amount per titleof 1200 journals were done. After that the survey of the subscription of E-journal and print
journal in national universities has been performed twice in a year to establish the database.
It was very useful to negotiate with publishers.
(3) Negotiations with Elsevier Science

Table 1

Number of Participated Institutions : 2002-2005

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The negotiation was first started with Elsevier Science. More than 50 negotiations havebeen conducted since the establishment in October 2000. In March 2001, we received from
Elsevier two proposals of “Price Template for Electronic Journals” and “Proposal on
Subconsortia, incl. Life Science Subconsortium.” That enabled contract renewals with
Elsevier in each university and realized the sustaining of the usage environment for EJ evenafter the completion of SD-21 Program.
In fiscal 2002, the Task Force tackled various issues raised by the fusion of ScienceDirect
and IDEAL and also solved the problem of succession to the acquired environment of usage
for EJ, with an eye to archives.
Breakdown of 95 participants by subconsortium are 36 by freedom, 20 by cross access andlife science, 9 by life science, 24 by cross access, etc. as of March 31, 2003. The second 3
year contact was completed in July 2004.
(4) Negotiations with other publishers
Negotiation with other publisher such as Blackwell, Springer, Kluwer have been done very
actively so far. The consortia with 16 large publishers and several agent including two
aggregators have been established. The total number of more than 12,000 E-journal titles
with US$ 100 million is now maintained. It may be one of the largest consortia in theworld.
The number of participated national universities to the consortium of each publisher from2002 to 2005 is shown in Table 1. Almost all national university libraries have joined theconsortia of JANUL. As the results, the average number of E-journal title subscribedreaches almost 5,000 in 2005 in the national universities. The distribution of the titles
among national universities is also shown in Fig.1 chronologically. The chronological changeof the average E-journal title in national universities is shown in Fig.2 compared with thosein private and public universities.
(5) Publication of Q&A pamphlet
The Q&A pamphlet on the contracts survey in July 2002 and current conditions ofnegotiation was published and distributed to each university.
(6) Usage statistical data analysis
The working group for usage data analysis was set up in October 2002 and compiled a reportand also formulated a guideline for usage data report of supplying publishers.

Fig.1

Number of E-Journals in National Universities:2003-2005
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Fig.2Average Number of E-Journals in Universities in Japan(1997-2005)(7) Survey on the present and future of usage of electronic journals in the university
In 2001 the first survey was conducted on 3,000 faculty members and graduate students at
10 universities, i.e. 7 large universities, Chiba University, Tokyo Institute of Technology,
Hiroshima University. We analyzed its result, compiled a report and distributed to each
university in 2002. The second survey was performed in 2003 at the 13 universities
including 10 universities of the first survey. The questionnaire was mailed out to 3,750
faculty members and graduate students and the answer of more than 40 % of them were
given. The interesting results were obtained to understand of the users’ behaviors. The
detail of the questionnaire and its results were shown in Appendix.
(8) Basic plan on training workshop of user education staff for electronic journals
In August 2001, the two-day workshops were held both in the east (Chiba University) andwest area (Nagoya University). 60 user education staff of national university libraries
participated in each workshop. In August 2002, the same two-day workshops were held
both at the Tokyo Institute of Technology (east) and Osaka University (west). 56 in the eastand 50 in the west participated.
We have had discussions as to how to run the workshop in or after this fiscal year inconsideration with the training programs provided by the National Institute of Informatics(NII).
(9) Reaction to the integration of national universities
At the integration of universities, new budget and scale of subscription are not simply equal
to the sum of those before. We demanded required considerations and responses from thepublishers.
(10) All-inclusive virtual consortium of domestic consortia in JapanIn July 2002, regarding Elsevier’s EJ problem, the Japan Fair Trade Commission (JFTC)
provided response to the claim for examination of the Japan Association of Private
University Libraries, Japan Medical Library Association and Japan Pharmaceutical Library
Association that the case did not conflict with the Anti-monopoly Law. With this, legal
dispute on Elsevier issue has come to a tentative conclusion.
Our Task Force examined a framework of “JCOLC” in October 2002 and at the Coordinating

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Committee of Japanese University Libraries, “JCOLC” was approved as an inclusive genericname of all university consortia only for external use. The private university libraries
established consortia named PULC with the financial support from MEXT.
(11) Other points
The Task Force held more than 150 meetings including negotiations or pre-negotiations withpublishers during the period of its foundation to the end of June 2005. We kept on sending
activity reports with publishers’ proposals, meeting minutes, etc. to all national university
libraries. Our activity reports have been sent more than 64 times both on the mailing list
(ML) of JANUL and EJ staff ML set up in October 2002. And all results of our surveys havebeen posted on the web in which ID and password required to access.
NEGOTIATING METHODS OF EJ TASK FORCE
Establishment of preconditions for negotiation
The following 3 preconditions were set at the negotiations with large publishers.
1) Confirmation of negotiating partner
We invited executives in charge of EJ, e.g. vice-president of large publishers and confirmed
the negotiating ability of Japan branch office and also confirmed the reserving of the right tonegotiate directly with the head office.
2) Explanation of Japanese special circumstances (Prepared in Japanese and English)
The Task Force has made efforts to explain about severe situation of the national
universities and accounting regulations and to affirm a shared understanding with them.
Especially, the great difference between Japanese and Euro-American universities was
explained in detail that departments and researchers have been taking a vital role in adecision-making process on serial subscriptions in Japan.
3) Negotiation representing all national universities (99+α as of 2003, 87+α as of 2005)
The Task Force should negotiate representing 99 national universities (currently 87+α) andapply any results into a consortium for all universities.
Check points for consortium contracts
There have not been yet any established baseline agreements or agreement criteria for EJ
consortium contracts. We have examined the following items and their contents in various
proposals provided by publishers at the meetings.
(1) Effects of making consortium* Benefits and favorable terms by the formation of consortium
discount, range of access, i.e. titles and years of publication* Bridging of digital divide in JANUL
conditional diversity, i.e. considering duplicate subscriptions for large universities andprice model for small universities(2) Price* Price model for EJ only, with DDP* Not subject to the amount of subscriptions to print version* Cap on price hike* Cancellation allowed according to the amount of price hike(3) Evaluation method of scale of subscriptions* Amount of subscriptions to print version
base year, net titles/cumulative titles, catalog price (which currency?)/amount of
payment/estimated value of contents* FTE
faculty/graduate/undergraduate, all staff/fields* Definition of site(4) Stable supply of EJ

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* Alternative guarantee for service interruption
refunding, hot stand-by/mirror server* Accumulation of access coverage in the previous year at the contract renewal* Archives guarantee at the contract termination* Method of notification about access failure* Continuous usage during the contracted period when publishers sold off to another(5) Services* Basically 24 hours a day with minimized suspended time for systematic maintenance* Walk-in user
* ILL
coverage of titles available (all titles / subscribed titles), delivery method (DDS / FAX /Mail), statistics reportability, use limit (times of supplying one article to one requesting
entity [CONTU Guideline]* Course Pack/Electronic Reserve* Remote access (UserID&Password/Proxy server)* Embargo
beginning time of access to full-text data (at the date when print version is published or
earlier)* Availability of end-user manual in Japanese* User training* Supply of metadata
URL, ISSN, DOI, title, volume issue & years of publication, publishing house(6) Accounting regulations / Laws
* Contract unit
consortium by accumulating all individual contracts, whole university / each campus /each department* Method of payment
direct contracts (method of remittance), agent contracts (competitiveness in agent
selection), due date for payment* Contract period
calendar year/fiscal year, segmented period of year, free access after the contract period(gracing)* Procedures of renewal and its offering time-limit* Conditions of cancellation* Designation of domestic laws to comply with, designation of agent and domestic court at
a legal dispute* Method of dealing with undefined matters of agreements or contracts
mutual agreement procedure(7) Usage statistics* COUNTER compatible
OUTCOMES OR ACHIEVEMENTS OF EJ TASK FORCE AND THE LATEST REPORT(1) Outcomes or achievements from the Task Force
The followings have been achieved under the activities of the Task Force.
1) Advantageous contract models for consortium with 16 large publishers and other sectors
such as Elsevier, Springer, Blackwell, Wiley and ISI have been established. And thosenegotiations seemed to deepen our mutual understanding with each publisher.
2) The possibility to set up the EJ archives in Japan was advanced. The collaboration with
National Institute of Informatics (NII) is now being realized.
3) The shift from agent contacts to direct contracts was pursued and the beneficial
environment for our national universities was created.
4) Activities of university libraries have been reported and appealed to the Ministry of
Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT). With that, introduction budget
of EJ has been newly allocated. Requests from university libraries were reflected in the7foundation of Working Group for Digital Research Information Infrastructure and also in its
report.
5) With no direct relations to the Task Force activities, the international cooperation withICOLC, SPARC and ISCA was begun during this period.
These are not fully satisfactory but the outcomes on a nation-wide basis.
The following contributions could be found towards individual activities of university
libraries. I suppose that they will mean a great deal more in a consecutive way.
1) The appeal for the importance of EJ was facilitated within the university. Some university
libraries were allocated campus budget successfully and others acquired EJ allocations on awhole university basis.
2) Some universities started to develop all-campus framework for promoting academic
infrastructure such as duplication control of subscribed journals, in relation with costs.
3) The reforms of library staff consciousness was advanced and it was proved that we might
produce a profitable situation by tackling issues for ourselves.
(2) Latest activities of Task Force
1) Negotiations with new publishers
We began negotiations with brand-new publishers, e.g. aggregators or academic societies.
More proposals were brought in from negotiating partners.
2) Negotiations with large publishers to continue consortia
The Task Force spent much time on negotiating with the publishers that we have alreadysigned a consortium contract with, concerning new problems like integration of Elsevier
Science and Academic Press, etc. The second 3 year contracts between publishers anduniversity libraries was completed in 2004 or 2005 after sever negotiations. As to theextension of the second 3-year contracts, publishers and university libraries would possibly
disagree with each other.
4) Maintenance of consortia regarding incorporation, restructuring and integration ofnational universities
In April 2004, 99 national universities were restructured and integrated into 89. After that,
more than 10 universities will be reformed. In 2005 two medium-size universities failed tocontinue the contract with the same condition and decreased the number of EJ titles
subscribed drastically. To recover it is a very important issue.
5) Initiation of archival functions in January 2004
The server workstation for the archival functions of electronic journals started to work fromJanuary 2004 at the National Information Institution supported by the government. The
new Springer merged Kluwer will install all EJ data onto it. We have to ask otherpublishers to do the same way.
CHALLENGES FOR EJ TASK FORCE AND PROSPECTS FOR THE CONSORTIA
We have operated voluntarily and intensively for about 5f years and future challenges would
be as follows.
1) Can the Task Force afford to operate in or after 2006
To negotiate with publishers and aggregators, a strong negotiating body would be more
required as a representative of JANUL. But, we doubt if the negotiations will be successful
on the same track. Members who have played vital roles are tired out and will be possibly
relocated to other positions. The Task Force, therefore, will need more sustainableorganization.
In particular, for consortium contracts and their maintenances a huge amount ofadministrative and clerical support would be necessary, so the keeping of full-time staff
would be essential.
The question is that only JANUL may take a proactive initiative as to a lot of new

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publishers and database suppliers to negotiate with. I think that we should intend a tie-up
with public and private universities.
2) Reaction to the change of distribution system for scholarly information
Serial price stabilization is an essential problem but still long far away. Most EJ prices arestill moving in conjunction with print version. On consortium agreements for EJ, we set acap on the price hike of almost 5%, but in order to realize the stabilization of EJ price,modalities of distribution for academic information and principle of cost burdens should bereconstructed on top of the consortia.
As academic journals including EJ have been published or distributed internationally in aoligopolistic or overconcentrated market, collaboration with SPARC, ICOLC, etc. might beabsolutely necessary. Digitization other than EJ may possibly be making a rapid progress
and we should reconsider the distribution scheme for academic information in relation with
an appropriate shape of university-launched information transmissions such as theinstitutional repository with self-archiving and open access system.
3) Strengthened collaboration with each university
In those activities mentioned above of the Task Force, we sent information in a digitalformat as promptly as possible, After that, we asked about the participation in the
consortium, while gathering information and hearing views from each university.
Information is a power. The information provided by each university library displayed its
greatest force during the negotiations with publishers.
However, in some universities, required information was not effectively communicated todecision-makers, especially for Task Force non-member libraries. In future, we need a newframework for closer communication with the Task Force and quick decision-making within
the university libraries. Also, it may be desired that individual libraries should operatein-campus activities to realize a widespread use of EJ and shift of cost burdens incoordination with the Task Force.
The perfect picture of academic information infrastructure is that all researchers should be
able to freely and instantly access journal articles and other materials as human intellectual
properties over the Internet and realize a cycle of their reproductions.
Because the national site licensing for all EJ’s will be unacceptable by any measure from afinancial aspect, in the current distribution method of academic information, a wide variety
of approaches and consortia will continue to be required. Additionally, the distribution
system of academic information should be renovated.
The road ahead will be very bumpy, but it is considered to be our critical task as librarians
that we will bridge information gap or digital devide among universities as much as possible
and we will create a better environment where research and education may be carried out
on an equal footing.
In closing, I would be very grateful to Professor Shun Tutiya (Director of Chiba University
Library, Chief of the Task Force from July 2005) and other members of the EJ Task Force.
Also I would express my deepest appreciation for their kind cooperation to all national
university libraries and the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology(MEXT). Finally, I would express my thanks to Mr. Inoue (Tokyo Institute of Technology
Library) for his help to make this paper.
This paper is a revised version of my presentation at the IFLA Conference held in Munich in20034).

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REFERENCES[1] Itoh, Y. : Library Consortium, part 2. The Establishment of the Electronic Journal
Consortia of ANUL, The journal Information Science and Technology Association,
ISTA,Vo.52, No.5,2002, pp.262-265 (in Japanese).
[2] Itoh Y. : Subscription of the Electronic Journal in National University in Japan,
University Libraries Cooperation News, Vol.22, No.6, 2002.3, pp.9-1 (in Japanese).
[3] Itoh, Y : Use of Information Services in Asia Nations, No.4: Japan Establishment of theconsortia of Electronic Journals in JANUL and Future Issues, Information Management(Joho Kanri),Vol.47, No.12, March 2005, pp.786-795.
[4] IFLA Preconference: http://www.bsb-muenchen.de/ifla/ifla_pre.htm, 2003 .
APPEXNDIX
Questionnaire to the users and its results

Fig. A1 Frequency of Use of Electronic Journals

Fig.A3 Information Sources for Electronic Journals

Fig.A5

Future Needs for Electronic Journals

Fig.A4

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Fig. A2 Number of Titles Used

Reasons for Not Using Electronic Journals

Fig.A6 Needs for Print Journals(1)Fig.A7 Needs for Print Journals(2)Fig.A9Fig.A8Perception of 8 Most Often Used Electronic
Journal Services

Fig.A11 Needs for Back Files of Electronic Journals

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Use and Awareness of Major Electronic Journals

Fig.A10 Features that Contribute to Ease of Use

Fig.A12 Data Format UsedFig.A13 Paths to Articles Needed

Fig.A14 Needs for Remote Access12