2024 Volume 70 Issue 2 Pages 87-104
In this study, a survey was conducted using search results of “Catalog of Reference Books” and bibliographic data of the National Diet Library holdings with the aim to clarify the publication trends of reference books in Japan. Numbers of reference book publications calculated by referring to the “Catalog of Reference Books” from 1990 to 2019, and bibliographic data of reference books from 1950 to 2020 collected by referring to National Diet Library Subject Headings and National Diet Library Classification, were analyzed.
The result showed that the numbers of publications of most reference books peaked from the 1980s to the 2000s and then continued to decline, earlier as a whole than general published books. It was also found that chronological tables, glossaries, encyclopedias, and bibliographies excluding those in the humanities showed a remarkable decrease, while bibliographies mainly in humanities, dictionaries in the natural sciences, and directories showed a gradual decrease or even an increase.
