According to the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, the cost of materials for national university libraries in 2019 increased by 1 million yen compared to the previous year, and it turned from a prolonged downward trend to an increase.Paper-based material costs are still declining, but electronic-based material costs are increasing.
According to the Ministry of Education, the national university library material cost in 2019 is 709 billion yen.The breakdown is 256 billion yen for paper materials and 342 billion yen for electronic materials.Of the electronic media, the material cost of electronic journals accounted for 325 billion yen.Paper media decreased by 17 billion yen from the previous year, but electronic media increased by 12 billion yen, resulting in an overall increase of 708 billion yen from the previous year.
The cost of materials for university libraries nationwide was 2015 billion yen in FY746, but since it has been declining every year since then, it has finally come to a halt.The number of universities with institutional repositories that publish research results on the Internet increased by 17 from the previous year to 620.
However, library operating costs, including personnel costs, were only 744 billion yen, a decrease of 3 million yen from the previous year. As the environment surrounding university libraries deteriorates due to the decline in the 18-year-old population and the financial difficulties of the country, we can see the difficult kitchen situation in which the library operating costs have to be reduced.
Of the 801 universities with an on-campus network, 10 have lines with communication speeds of 272 Gigabit or higher.Although all national universities have completed the formulation of security policy, 5 public universities and 154 private universities have not been developed.
