This was not an encouraging discovery, especially when one considers that 65,000 new books are issued each year in Japan. I also discovered that all three of books listed on Kinokuniya's BookWeb were published after 1985. Anyone wishing to purchase older books is forced to make the rounds of used bookshops or libraries. But the situation is no different in the United States, since the majority of books offered by online bookstores there were issued after 1990. In both Japan and the United States, most books seem to disappear from the market 10 years after they are published.
Publishers focus their resources on such books, and tend to neglect the rest of their catalogues.
Whether they like it or not, online bookstores are providing their databases as public services. But by using their databases as sales tools, online bookstores have also succeeded admirably in fostering new demand. Of course, even if I hadn't purchased any books, I had still acquired the information I needed from the online bookstore databases. I have since availed myself of these free services any number of times. Personally, I have felt an obligation to support the Japanese sites, which are threatened with extinction by international networks that boast much more financial clout.