A project with Waseda University Library for expedited interlibrary loan and document delivery began in late 1998. The National Diet Library is actively involved in coordinating this evolution. All others reported increases. Still, the extent of increase was relatively small when compared to the total output of serials in Japan. Overall, there has not been much progress made in expanding the total number of unique Japanese serial titles acquired nationally.
Scholars increasingly are familiar with and adept at using Japanese electronic resources.
Many faculty and students are of a mindset that local ownership is still preferable to remote access, however well coordinated. The latter was recommended by the task force that produced a report on Japanese materials for the ARL Foreign Acquisitions Project in 1993. We know that there will be more, along with electronic journals and other publications. Individual libraries will not be able to afford subscriptions to everything. We should begin to develop expertise in approaching Japanese publishers for cooperative licensing arrangements that make subscriptions to these services available as widely as possible in North America.