Management and preservation of administrative publications by local governments in Japan

【Purpose】The purpose of this study is to examine the current systems used to manage and preserve administrative publications in local governments in Japan and identify related problems. 【Methods】The study examined the laws and regulations on the websites of each of the 47 prefectures in Japan to see what regulations each local government has regarding the management and preservation of administrative publications. 【Results】As a result of this investigation, 17 local governments were found to have institutional grounds for the management of administrative publications and their content. These local governments are seen to be equipped with institutional systems to comprehensively collect their administrative publications in accordance with their regulations that require affiliated organizations to send their publications to them. As for the preservation of administrative publications, the study looked into the case of Osaka, which has a set of regulations that mandates the permanent preservation of administrative publications of historical or cultural value, and that of Tokyo, which has commissioned the task of publication preservation to the Tokyo Metropolitan Archives to which administrative publications are required to be sent. The regulations, however, are found to have some common limitations: first, the coverage of both the range of administrative organizations and publications is limited, for example, publications issued by the assembly or committees are excluded. Second, the regulations do not seem to cover all the stages of administrative publication management, including preservation. Third, the lack of efforts to incorporate agencies responsible for the management of administrative publications in local governments, which include the archive, assembly library, and public libraries, into the whole system of administrative publication management.