What people call Bälz's Diary (“Erwin Bälz, Das Leben eines deutschen Arztes im erwachenden Japan, ” 1931) has been often quoted to the others' writings, all the more because it is a very valuable work as a historical document of the Meiji era in Japan, though his descriptions have sometimes been accepted uncritically, and then generalized as historical facts. When we examine them in detail, we occasionally find that his statements were derived from his mere misunderstandings and hasty conclusions, but we can still get some unexpectedly good suggestions from them. For example, we have studied his statements concerning the opening ceremony of the Medical School of Tokyo University which was held on the 22nd of April, 1879, which Japanese Emperor attended. After comparing Bälz's statements with other ones, considering the background of the political and financial situation of Japan in those days, we have made several discoveries and discussed about them in this paper. As mentioned above, it is thought important and advantageous to reexamine Bälz's records in order to understand Japanese medical history and then whole Japanese history of those days.

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The problem of how to utilize doctoral theses in dentistry has not been discussed so much up to now, even though theses are valuable as a superior primary source. This is because the preparation of secondary sources necessary for researching them is insufficient and that most of these have been submitted to academic journals. In this paper, the following subjects are introduced and discussed; the present conditions for the acquisition of doctoral theses in dentistry in Japan, the way to use them, the means of researching them, and the method by which they are processed by Nippon Dental University. In addition, proposals such as sending them to the American Dental Association are made.

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The author considers the importance of complete bibliographic citations attached to photocopies of literature, and points out the necessity of providing bibliographic citations on the original materials or their photocopies by librarians.
Complete bibliographic citations are useful for library users and librarians in the following three respects.
1) They make lists of cited references correct.
2) They enable library users and librarians to go back to the originals.
3) They lessen the time and energy expended by librarians in searching incomplete bibliographic citations.
Providing bibliographic citations is necessary not only in the photocopying of a library's own holding literature (including interlibrary loan lending) but also in ILL borrowing.
The methods of providing bibliographic citations recommended by the author are:
1) In photocopying journal articles, the best method is to write the missing elements of bibliographic citations on the originals. An acceptable method is to write them on the photocopies.
2) In photocopying chapters or paragraphs of a book, the best method is to attach an extra photocopy of the title page. Missing elements of the bibliographic citation on the title page, of course, should be written on the original title page or its photocopy. But if the bibliographic citation appears in the required portion of the book, a librarian is able to complete the prepared bibliographic citation without attaching an extra photocopy of the title page.
3) Photocopying of other materials (patents, dissertations, proceedings, etc.) should be treated in the same way as journals and books.
4) Photocopying of nonliterature subjects, such as tables of contents, instructions to authors and indexes, should also be done in similar way.

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The Japan Medical Library Association was established in 1927, and its major role is interlibrary loan activities. Arranging the “Union Catalog” of journals and books (holdings list), which is based on the interlibrary loan activities, is one of the basic tasks of the Association. As for the “Union Catalog” of foreign medical books, a total of eight volumes of the “Union Catalogue of Foreign Books in the Libraries of Japanese Medical Schools” were published from 1949 to 1956. This so-called “Union Catalog” has been edited by using a computer from 1977 up to the present. This study reports the history of the “Union Catalog.”

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The South East Asian Medical Information Center (SEAMIC), one of the major projects of the International Medical Foundation of Japan (IMFJ), was created for the purpose of contributing to better health planning in South East Asian countries through the exchange, generation, and utilization of health and medical related information on a multilateral basis. The 11th SEAMIC Workshop on “Multilateral Collaboration on SEAMIC Health Information Activities with Special Reference to Inter-Country Lending System” was held at Bangkok, Thailand from February 6th to 10th, 1984. There were 18 participants from Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Japan and W. H. O. Two technical papers were presented and each participating country presented its respective country report. Six panelists discussed about training programmes for medical and health related information personnel. There were 4 sessions to discuss about the development of inter-country lending system. The main agreements and recommendations are as follows: 1) Compilation and publication of the SEAMIC Union List is March 1987. 2) The provision of one additional photocopy machine to each country; Malaysia, Philippines and Thailand, and two more additional machines to Indonesia was recommended. 3) The guideline and procedure of coupon system was admitted by all participating countries. 4) All six SEAMIC countries including Japan submit a listing of doctoral dissertations and conference proceedings published since 1983. 5) All SEAMIC countries agreed to participate in preparation fo the SEAMIC Index Medicus. This work should be completed by 1986. 6) Collection and compilation of library statistics should be done by SEAMIC annually. 7) “User Study” should be set up to know medical librarians' view concerning SEAMIC services.

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