Activities of the Imperial University Library Association

Abstract

The Imperial University Library Association was organized in 1924. It was the first university library association in Japan. The association still continues to be active in the university library world, though it changed its name to the Seven National Universities Library Association in 1949.
The Imperial University Library Association agreed to issue users' cards mutually in 1925 and five years later made arrangements for an Inter-library loan system. Moreover in 1943 it published in Tosyokan zassi “Cataloging rules for Japanese and Chinese books, Part 1” which was very useful for university librarians in Japan, especially for catalogers.
The association had animated discussions about library management, cataloging, services and so on during annual meetings. This research aims to give a brief history of the association and its fruits before World War II, based on the records of its annual meetings.