LGBT Book Collections in Japanese Public Libraries
Yuhiro Mizunuma1[0000-0003-3108-5003] and Keita Tsuji2[0000-0003-2718-632X]
1 Surugadai University, Hanno Saitama, Japan
2 University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba Ibaraki, Japanyuhiro@klis.tsukuba.ac.jp

Abstract. It is important for public libraries to provide services for LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) people. However, few studies have examined the library services for LGBT people in Japan. In this study, we investigated 3,085 public libraries and 433 LGBT books in order to clarify library services for LGBT people with a focus on book collection. The purpose of thisstudy is to clarify the current states of library services for LGBT people and investigate the elements that can improve such library services. According to theresults, it was found that 97.8% of Japanese public libraries were holding atleast one LGBT book. It was also found that the presence of the LGBT books
was mostly not influenced by the published year, price, and popularity. On theother hand, it was shown that LGBT literature—especially Japanese novels,
English novels, and children’s books—tended to be held by public libraries
more than the other types of LGBT books. It was also shown that the libraries
whose municipality had introduced ‘partnership certificates’ for same-sex couples and the libraries that had introduced outsourcing systems tended to holdLGBT books more than the other libraries.
Keywords: LGBT Books, Collection Analysis, Japanese Public Libraries.

1

Introduction

In recent years, human rights for LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) people has been attracting attention. Because of this increasing awareness, new legislation for LGBT people has been established in Japan. Since 2015, over 20 municipalities have passed an ordinance which issues ‘partnership certificates’ to same-sex couples. These certificates give them the same rights as married heterosexual couples. In
2018, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government passed a regulation that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. Furthermore, in July
2019, an openly gay person was elected as a member of the House of Councillors of
the National Diet.
A public library is a library that provides services to all visitors, which of course
includes LGBT people. It is important for the public library to provide services forLGBT people and this awareness has been increasing along with the above-mentioned
political changes in Japan. Nevertheless, few studies have examined the library services for LGBT people in Japan.

Within this context, we clarified library services for LGBT people with a focus onbook collection. More specifically, we tried to establish how many libraries holdLGBT books; what kind of LGBT books tend to be held by Japanese public libraries;
and what kind of libraries tend to hold LGBT books. The purpose of this study is toclarify the current states of library services for LGBT people and investigate the elements that can improve such library services.
In order to clarify what kind of LGBT books tend to be held, we considered thefollowing five typical characteristics of books: (1) Nippon Decimal Classification(NDC) categories, (2) C-Code, (3) published year, (4) price, and (5) popularity. In
order to clarify what kinds of libraries tend to hold LGBT books, we considered thefollowing four types of characteristics of libraries: (i) whether the library is in themunicipality that introduced the partnership certificates for same-sex couples, (ii)whether the library is managed by an outsourcing system called the ‘designated administrator system’ (henceforth ‘outsourcing library’), (iii) whether the library is amain one or an annex, and (iv) the type of municipality served.
We chose 433 LGBT books as our sample. The 3,085 public libraries that were
holding them were investigated using the application programming interface (API)from Calil (https://calil.jp). Calil is a free web service that can perform cross-library
searches in Japan. Using this program, we investigated the current status of public
library services for LGBT people in Japan.

2

Related Studies

Other researchers have conducted library services studies in regard to LGBT people.
For example, Hart and Mfazo [1] used a questionnaire for librarians in Cape Town,
South Africa, to investigate collection practices, behaviours, and services which libraries render towards the gay community. Boon and Howard [2] investigated nine
Canadian public libraries’ that contained 35 young adult fiction works with LGBT
content. They discovered that these libraries had significantly fewer copies of LGBT
titles than control titles (i.e., not LGBT titles). They concluded that certain libraries
were much more likely to purchase the control titles than the LGBT titles. Chapman[3] also conducted a holding analysis of 203 LGBT-related fictional works for children and young people in English public libraries. She concluded that the provision ofLGBT-related fiction for children and young people was generally limited by theparticipating authorities. However, concerning libraries in Japan, some case studies
were conducted but little is known about what is actually happening in the entire
country.
Meanwhile, some research was conducted on controversial books in Japan. For example, Ohba et al. [4] investigated the numbers of collections of books on the subjectof ‘the right to collective defence’ in 5,003 Japanese libraries. This was done in order
to examine whether controversial books were fairly held. For the same purpose, Ohba
[5] also investigated the numbers of collections of books on ‘postal service privatisation’ and ‘Yasukunijinja’ (The Imperial Shrine of Yasukuni), which commemorates
those who died in the service of Japan.

3

3

Methods

In this section, we explain our method of selecting sample libraries and sample books
along with the methods of our analysis.
3.1

Sample Libraries

We used 3,085 public libraries as our sample libraries where Calil could be implemented to retrieve their collections. For each library, we obtained data concerning
each characteristic. As previously mentioned, the characteristics we considered wereas follows: (i) whether the library is in the municipality that introduced the partnership certificates for same-sex couples, (ii) whether the library is an outsourcing library, (iii) whether the library is a main library or an annex, and (iv) the type of municipality it served.
We determined above-mentioned (i) by using the list provided by the ‘organization
to demand for same-sex partnership system against municipalities.’ This list included
23 municipalities and one prefecture that introduced the partnership certificates forsame-sex couples. It also included the eight municipalities that are planning to introduce these certificates. Then, we classified our sample libraries as (a) libraries in municipalities that had already introduced partnership certificates, (b) libraries in municipalities that were planning to introduce the certificates, and (c) others (libraries inmunicipalities that neither had introduced the system nor were planning to).
We also classified each sample library as either an outsourcing one or not an outsourcing one. In Japan, local governments have long managed public libraries. However, in 2003, organisations—including private enterprises—began to take over their
management with the introduction of an outsourcing system called the designatedadministrator system. Many libraries have now introduced this system. However,some people in Japan argue that the outsourcing libraries may not provide unprofitable services, such as those for minorities. With this in mind, we considered whether
the library is an outsourcing library and clarified the outsourcing libraries did not tend
to hold LGBT books. We judged whether the library is an outsourcing library or notbased on The Report on Public Libraries Managed by the Designated Administrator
System (2018) which was published by the Japan Library Association. This source
includes a list of outsourcing libraries. Thus, we identified libraries listed in the reportas outsourcing libraries and all others as not outsourcing libraries.
Furthermore, we classified the libraries as either main libraries or annexes, and according to the type of municipality served: (1) prefectural libraries, (2) ‘ordinancedesignated’ city libraries, (3) Tokyo special ward libraries, (4) city other than ordinance-designated ones (henceforth ‘general city libraries’), and (5) town and village
libraries. Japan is divided into 47 prefectures, and these are the first level of region
classifications, one of which is ‘Tokyo-to’. The second level of region classifications
are the ordinance-designated cities, Tokyo special wards, general cities, towns, andvillages. In Japan, an ordinance-designated city is defined as a city with a population
greater than 500,000 such as ‘Yokohama-shi’. The Tokyo special wards are 23 municipalities with the highest population densities in Japan such as ‘Shinjuku-ku’. Ageneral city is defined as a municipality with a population of more than 50,000 people
such as ‘Hakodate-shi’. Towns and villages such as ‘Yakushima-cho’ are smaller thanthose already mentioned. The classification was based on Statistics on Libraries inJapan which was published by the Japan Library Association.
Table 1 shows the number of our sample libraries in each category. We excluded
the libraries whose names were not in the Statistics on Libraries in Japan from oursample concerning the type-wise analysis of main libraries or annexes and the typesof municipalities served. Because of this, the total numbers of samples shown in Table 1 were slightly different depending on the analysis.

Table 1. The number of our sample libraries in each categoryi) Whether the library is in themunicipality that introduced
the partnership certificates

Already Introduced
Planning to Introduce
The Others (Not Introduced, and Planning to)Totalii) Whether the library is an
outsourcing one

Outsourcing Libraries
Not Outsourcing Libraries
Totaliii) Whether the library is a main
library or an annex

Main Libraries
Annexes
Total
Prefectural Libraries
Ordinance-Designated City Librariesiv) The type of municipality
servedTokyo Special Ward Libraries
General City Libraries
Town and Village Libraries
Total

3.2

249
72
2,764
3,085
470
2,615
3,085
1,255
1,748
3,003
56
267
222
1,960
498
3,003

Sample LGBT Books

We used 433 LGBT books as our sample. Our selection process involved these threesources: (1) Japanese National Bibliography provided by the National Diet Library;(2) an LGBT book guide, Rainbow-Colored Book Shelf; and (3) Google Web Search.
We first used the Japanese National Bibliography and downloaded the book data
whose Nippon Decimal Classification (NDC) categories were homosexuality (i.e.,
367.97). We next used Rainbow-Colored Book Shelf, which gave 164 LGBT books.
Third, we utilized Google and searched with keywords such as ‘LGBT book list’ or‘sexual-minority book list’, and obtained book lists from its top 20 pages. After that,
we obtained ISBN data of each LGBT book from the National Diet Library’s online

5

search API (https://ndlonline.ndl.go.jp), because Calil only allows us to search books
by ISBN. Finally, we obtained 433 ISBNs and used them as our sample LGBT books.
Concerning those 433 books, in June 2019, we investigated which ones were heldusing Calil. In addition, we obtained data of characteristics concerning our sample
books. As previously mentioned, the characteristics we considered were as follows:(1) NDC categories, (2) C-Code, (3) published year, (4) price, and (5) popularity. The
data concerning NDC categories, published year, and price were obtained from the
National Diet Library API. The data concerning C-Code were obtained from Kinokuniya’s online web store (https://www.kinokuniya.co.jp). We used the number of hit
counts of Bing search (https://www.bing.com) in order to measure the popularity inthe same way as a previous study conducted by Ohba et al. [4]. We used Bing Web
Search API for each ISBN to obtain data concerning popularity. Table 2 shows thecharacteristics of LGBT books analysed. This table also shows the channel of acquisition and all data that was obtained on July 6th, 2019.
In the following, we explain about NDC and C-Code. NDC is the most popular library classification system in Japan. This classification code consists of three digits.
We used first-level (i.e., first digit), second-level (i.e., first and second digits), andthird-level (i.e., first, second, and third digits) classification codes as book characteristics. For example, if ‘159’ was assigned to a book as an NDC category, we used ‘1’,‘15’, and ‘159’. Incidentally, these three codes represent ‘Philosophy’, ‘Ethics. Morals’, and ‘Practical ethics’, respectively.
C-Code is a classification code assigned by the Japanese publishers for bookstores.
It consists of four numbers: the first digit represents target readers (such as ‘5: Books
for women’), the second digit represents the forms of books (such as ‘5: Dictionaries’), and the third and fourth digits represent subjects of books (such as ‘10: Philosophy’).
Table 2. Characteristics of LGBT books analysed
Characteristics

NDC
Categories

C-CodeValues

1st-level

0，1，…，92nd-level

00，01，…，99

3rd-level

000，001，…，999

1st digit (target readers)

0，1，…，8，9

2nd digit (forms)

0，1，…，8，9

3rd and 4th digit (subjects)

00，01，…，99

Published year

1985〜2019

Price (Yen)360〜18,000

Popularity

0〜2,000

Channel ofacquisition

The number ofacquisition data

National Diet
Library API

414

Kinokuniya
online bookstore(https://www.kin
okuniya.co.jp)

425

433
National Diet
Library API

429
433

In order to clarify what kind of LGBT books tend to be held by public libraries, wefirst show the top 10 LGBT books in these institutions. Additionally, we analysedthese holdings with a focus on the five characteristics shown in Table 2. Concerning
price and popularity, we calculated correlation coefficients between the value (i.e.,prices or Bing hit counts) and the number of sample LGBT books held. Concerning
NDC, C-Code, and published year, we calculated the mean (average) and median of
the number of sample LGBT books held for each value.
However, to clarify what kind of libraries tend to hold LGBT books, we calculated
each library’s RLGBT (the number of LGBT books held per the number of books heldby the library) for each category shown in Table 1. The RLGBT is defined as follows:

where Nall is the number of books held by the library and NLGBT is the number of oursample LGBT books held by the library. We calculated the mean and median of thenumber of the holdings of LGBT books for each category and compared them withthe mean and median figures of the other libraries. For example, if a library holds 30
sample LGBT books and the library holds 8,000 books, the library’s RLGBT becomes
0.00375 (=30/8,000). In this way, we calculated every RLGBT and then calculated themean and median of RLGBT for each category. For example, we determined the mean
and median of RLGBT among the libraries that were in the municipality that introduced
the partnership certificates and the libraries that were in the municipality that did not
introduce the partnership certificates and then compared them. Nall is obtained from
Statistics on Libraries in Japan, and we excluded the libraries whose names were notshown in Statistics on Libraries in Japan and libraries whose Nall was zero. The number of such libraries was 193 and accordingly the number of our sample libraries forthis analysis became 2,892 (=3,085-193).

4

Results and Discussion

In this section, we first show the results concerning how many libraries hold LGBTbooks. Then, we discuss the results concerning what kind of LGBT books tend to beheld by Japanese public libraries and what kinds of libraries tend to hold LGBTbooks.
4.1

Results Concerning How Many Libraries Hold LGBT Books

Table 3 shows the results of the number of LGBT books held by for our sample libraries. It also shows the mean and median of the number of LGBT books held perlibrary. The mean and median of LGBT books held by libraries were 42.6 and 32,
respectively. It is also shown that a library held 318 titles of our sample LGBT books,
which accounted for 73.4% of our sample of LGBT books. It is also suggested there
were some libraries that did not have our sample LGBT books at all. Such libraries
amounted to a total of 69. This suggests that 3,016 (=3,085-69) public libraries held at

7

least one LGBT book, which amounted to 97.8% of our sample libraries. In otherwords, 97.8% of Japanese public library were providing some kind of LGBT book.
Table 3. The number of LGBT books (per library)
Value
Mean
MedianMaximum
MinimumStandard Deviation

42.6
32
318
0
38.1

Table 4 shows the number of libraries that were holding LGBT books as well as
the mean and median of the number of libraries per book. The mean and median of
the number of libraries were 303.5 and 136, respectively. A book is held by 2,438
libraries, which is 79.0% of our sample libraries.
Table 4. The number of libraries (per LGBT book)
Value
Mean
MedianMaximum
MinimumStandard Deviation

4.2

303.5
136
2,438
0
385.4

Results concerning What Kind of LGBT Books Tend to be HeldIn this subsection, we first present the top ten LGBT books held by our sample libraries. After that, we explain the results concerning NDC categories, C-Code, publishedyear, price, and popularity in this order.
Top Ten LGBT Books Held by Public Libraries. Table 5 displays the top ten
LGBT books held by our sample libraries. Here, ‘n’ represents the number of libraries
that held the book. Target readers were judged from first digits of C-Code. Blackie,
the Crayon, was held by 2,438 public libraries, and it was the highest among oursample LGBT books. It is a picture book for children published in 2001. Interestingly,
in this table, it was found that six out of the top ten books were for children.
NDC Categories. Table 6 shows the NDC categories which were significantly higher
or lower in their number of holdings than the other books. This conclusion was basedon the Brunner-Munzel test. Here, ‘n’ represents the number of sample books of the
NDC category. ‘*’ and ‘**’ represent a significantly higher number of holdings thanthe other sample books at the 0.05 and 0.01 levels, respectively. This was observed
using the Brunner-Munzel test. ‘†’ and the ‘††’ represent a significantly lower number of holdings than the other sample books at the 0.05 and 0.01 levels, respectively.

‘All books’ is the results of all the books, and the mean and median are same asshown in Table 4. For example, it was found that the number of sample LGBT books
categorized under ‘9: Literature’ were 85 and the median and mean of the number oflibraries that hold the book were 602 and 508, respectively. This is higher than thatfor the other books (i.e., the books except for the ones whose NDC category was ‘9:
Literature’). Table 6 shows the NDC categories that were significantly higher than theother categories as follows: ‘General works’ (0), Literature (9), General works (00),‘Japanese literature’ (91), ‘English literature’ (93), General works (000), ‘Civil Code’(324), ‘Education. Educational thought’ (371), ‘Japanese literature: novel. Story’(913), and ‘English literature: novel. Story’ (933). In summary, LGBT books werecategorized as follows: (1) General works, (2) Literature (especially Japanese andEnglish novel and story), (3) Civil Code, (4) ‘Education. Educational thought,’ tend tobe held by Japanese public libraries.
Table 5. The top ten LGBT books held by our sample libraries
Title

n

Author

Year

Price

TargetReaders

1

Blackie, the Crayon

2,438(79.0%)

Miwa Nakaya

2001

1,200 Children

2

Our Real Situation

2,357(76.4%)

Circo Tomori,
Makiko Sato (Illustrator)

2016

1,300 Children

3

The Rainbow Garden

Ito Ogawa

2014

1,400

4

Life As a Girl

Tsukasa Sakaki

2016

5

I Am a Red Cat

Satoshin, Toshio
Nishimura (Illustrator)

2011

1,300 Children

Madoka Takadono

2013

1,600

Aidan Chambers

2003

2,400 Children

Mary Hoffman, Ros
Asquith (Illustrator)

2018

1,900 Children

1,420(46.0%)

Madoka Takadono

2016

1,500

1,369
(44.4%)

Alex Gino

2016

1,400 Children

6

7
8

9

Upper Class: The Large
Customer Department of
Fukumaru Department
Store
Postcards From No
Man’s Land
The Great Big Book of
Families
Upper Class: The Large
Customer Department of
Fukumaru Department
Store (2)10 George

2,063(66.9%)
1,808(58.6%)
1,609(52.2%)
1,587(51.4%)
1,535(49.8%)
1,473(47.7%)

Generalreaders
General1,500
readers

Generalreaders

Generalreaders

9
Table 6. NDC categories that were significantly higher or lower than the others

First
Level

0
7
9
Second
00
Level
72
77
91
93
Third
000
Level
324
371
726
913
923
933
All books

NDC
General works
The arts
Literature
General works
Painting. Pictorial arts
TheatreJapanese literature
English literature
General works
Civil Code
Education. Educational thought
Comics. Artwork
Japanese literature: Novel. Story
Chinese literature: Novel. Story
English literature: Novel. Story

n
19
55
85
19
50
4
45
32
19
4
2
50
44
4
32

Mean
453.0
129.7
602.0
453.0
138.1
56.0
596.6
702.8
453.0
420.8
211.0
138.1
607.3
39.3
702.8
303.5

Median
339.0
35.0
508.0
339.0
33.0
41.5
203.0
801.0
339.0
431.0
211.0
33.0
355.5
40.0
801.0
136.0

*
††
**
*
††
†
**
**
*
*
**
††
**
††
**

C-Code. Table 7 shows the C-Code which were significantly higher or lower in their
number of holdings than the other books based on the Brunner-Munzel test. Incidentally, the descriptions bunko and shinsho refer to formats that represent the sizesof the books. Both descriptions represent pocket-sized paperbacks and the difference
between the two is bunko is smaller than shinsho (approximately 105×148 mm and103 × 182 mm, respectively).
Concerning target readers, Table 7 suggests that practical LGBT books and LGBTbooks for children were significantly higher in number of holdings than the otherLGBT books. Concerning formats, shinsho, collected works, and picture books weresignificantly higher in number than the other LGBT books. Concerning fields, Japanese literature (Fiction. Romance. Novel) and foreign literature were significantly
higher in number than the other LGBT books. This result is similar to the results of
NDC classification, which indicated that literature—especially Japanese and English
novels and stories—tend to be held. It was also shown that LGBT books for children
tended to be held, which was also shown in the results concerning the top ten LGBTbooks held by public libraries.
Published Year. Fig. 1 represents the median of the number of libraries that hold thebook for each published year. We can say neither the newer nor the older books tend
to be held.

Table 7. C-Code categories that were significantly higher or lower than the others

1st Digit(Targetreaders)

2nd Digit(Formats)

3rd and4th Digit(Fields)

All books

C-Code0 Books for General Readers
2 Practical Books
3 Professional and Technical Books
8 Books for Children
9 Magazines
1 Bunko
2 Shinsho
3 Collected works
7 Picture books
9 Comics
0 General works
34 Managements
73 Music
79 Comics. Graphic novels
93 Japanese literature: Fiction. Romance. Novel
95 Japanese literature: Essays. Prose. Other literatures

n
326
2
29
53
14
46
17
44
16
21
5
4
2
27
55
75

Mean
251.1
194.5
115.2
823.0
17.0
141.0
384.7
456.4
657.5
16.0
37.8
341.3
35.0
36.1
628.0
170.3

Median125.0††
194.5*
87.0††
788.0**
4.0††
68.5††
362.0**
419.5**
460.5**
8.0††
4.0†
274.5*
35.0††
10.0††
371.0**
91.0††

97 Foreign literature: Fiction. Romance. Novel

38

646.8

674.5**

98 Other foreign literatures

11

494.3

478.0**

303.5

136

Fig. 1. The median of the number of libraries holding the book for each published year

Price. The correlation coefficient between the number of libraries that hold the bookand the price of the book was -0.05 and there was no significant difference at 0.05
level; therefore, there was little correlation between them.

11

Popularity. The correlation coefficient between the number of libraries that hold thebook and the popularity (i.e., Bing hit counts) was -0.02 and there was no significant
difference at 0.05 level; therefore, there was little correlation between them.
4.3

Results concerning What Kind of Libraries Tend to Hold LGBT Books.

In this subsection, we present the results concerning partnership certificates, and outsourcing libraries, whether the library is a main library or an annex, and the type ofmunicipality served, in this order.
Partnership Certificates. Table 8 shows the RLGBT (the value that the number ofsample LGBT books held divided by the number of books held by the library) concerning partnership certificates. The * and the † in the Median columns represent
significant differences at the 0.05 level, and the ** and †† represent significant differences at the 0.01 level. This was observed using the Brunner-Munzel test. The * andthe ** were significantly higher than the other libraries and † and †† were significantly lower than the other libraries. Table 8 shows the mean and median of the RLGBT of
the libraries that have already introduced the partnership certificates. Both calculations were 0.000391, and significantly higher than the other libraries at the 0.01 level.
Interestingly, not only the others (mean and median were 0.000360 and 0.000342,
respectively) but also libraries that were planning to introduce the partnership certificates (mean and median were 0.000313 and 0.000323, respectively) were significantly lower than the other libraries. These results may suggest that libraries tend to add
LGBT books to their collections after introducing the new system.
Table 8. The RLGBT concerning partnership certificates

Already
Introduced
Planning toIntroduce
The Others (NotIntroduced, andPlanning to)MedianMaximum

MinimumStandard
Deviation

n

Mean

233

0.000391 0.000391 **0.001100

0 0.000165

70

0.000313 0.000323 ††0.000612

0 0.000113

2,589

0.000360 0.000342 †0.001357

0 0.000166

Outsourcing Libraries. Table 9 shows the RLGBT concerning outsourcing libraries. It
shows the mean and median of the RLGBT of the outsourcing libraries were 0.000391
and 0.000374, respectively, and significantly higher than not outsourcing libraries(0.000356 and 0.000341, respectively) at 0.01 level.

Table 9. The RLGBT concerning outsourcing libraries

Outsourcing
libraries
Not Outsourcing libraries

n

Mean

MedianMaximum

MinimumStandard
Deviation

441

0.000391

0.000374 **0.001203

00.000161

2,451

0.000356

0.000341 ††0.001357

00.000166

Main Library or Annex. Table 10 shows the RLGBT concerning main libraries andannexes. It shows the mean and median of the RLGBT of the annexes were 0.000378
and 0.000360, respectively, and significantly higher than those of main libraries(0.000339 and 0.000321) at 0.01 level.
Table 10. The RLGBT concerning main libraries or annexes

0.000321 ††Minimum
0.0012910Standard
Deviation
0.0001520.000360 **0.001357

0.000173n

MeanMedianMain Libraries

1,254

0.000339

Annexes

1,638

0.000378

Maximum

0Type of Municipality Served. Table 11 shows the RLGBT concerning type of municipality served. Table 11 shows the RLGBT concerning Tokyo special ward libraries andtown and village libraries were significantly higher than those of the other libraries.
On the other hand, RLGBT concerning prefectural libraries and general city libraries
were significantly lower than those of the other libraries.
Table 11. The RLGBT concerning type of municipality servednPrefectural
Libraries
OrdinanceDesignated City
Libraries
Tokyo Special
Ward Libraries
General City
Libraries
Town and village libraries

Maximum

MinimumStandard
Deviation

MeanMedian56

0.000163

0.000165 ††0.000296 0.000004

0.000058263

0.000363

0.000358

0.00087600.000149

198

0.000413

0.000378 **0.001203

00.000182

1,887

0.000353

0.000335 ††0.001357

00.000161

488

0.000394

0.000387 **0.001291

00.00017113

5Conclusions

In this study, we tried to clarify library services for LGBT people with a focus onbook collection. More specifically, we tried to clarify how many libraries hold LGBTbooks; what kind of LGBT books tend to be held by Japanese public libraries; andwhat kinds of libraries tend to hold LGBT books. We investigated 3,085 public libraries and 433 LGBT books, and it was shown that the holdings of the LGBT books
were mostly not influenced by the published year, price, and popularity. Concerning
their subject, both of the results of the NDC classification and C-Code studies indicated LGBT literature (especially Japanese and English novels and stories) tended to beheld by Japanese public libraries. In addition, the results of top ten LGBT books heldby public libraries and C-Code indicated that LGBT books for children tended to beheld by Japanese public libraries. It is also shown that the libraries whose municipality had introduced partnership certificates for same-sex couples and the libraries that
had introduced outsourcing systems tended to hold LGBT books more than the otherlibraries. In addition, it was shown that annex libraries, Tokyo special ward libraries,
and town and village libraries tended to hold LGBT books more than the other libraries.
In the future, we would like to focus on duplications and usage in regard to how
many books are borrowed. In addition, we aim to conduct additional interview librarians in order to clarify the reasons of the above-mentioned results. Furthermore, we
intend to examine not only libraries’ book collections but also their other services forLGBT people. In this way, we would like to clarify the actual state of services forLGBT people in greater detail.

Acknowledgments
This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number JP19K20632. The authors also thank the Calil, Ltd. for providing holdings data on Japanese public libraries. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions described here are the authors and do notnecessarily reflect those of the sponsor.

References
1. Hart, G., Mfazo, N.: Places for all? Cape Town’s public library services to gays and lesbians. South African Journal of Libraries and Information Science, 76(2), 98–08 (2010).
2. Boon, M., Howard, V.: Recent lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender fiction for teens: are Canadian public libraries providing adequate collections?. Collection Building 23(3), 133–
138 (2004).
3. Chapman, E.: Provision of LGBT-related fiction to children and young people in English
public libraries: a mixed-methods study. Doctoral thesis submitted to the University of
Sheffield, 1–635 (2015).

4. Ohba, H., Agata, T., Ikeuchi, A., Otani, Y.: The impartiality of public library collection in
Japan: a sample selection of books about the right to collective defense. Journal of Japan
Society of Library and Information Science 62(2), 83–100 (2016) (text in Japanese).
5. Ohba, H.: On the equality of public library holdings: a sample of selection of the books
about postal privatization or about Yasukuni Shrine. Bulletin of Tokoha Gakuen JuniorCollege (42), 15–33 (2011) (text in Japanese).