There is neither a national medical library nor a formal nationwide interlibrary loan network in Japan. Of the total number of JMLA libraries, however, 94% receive informal borrowing requests made by hospital libraries. This study was designed to characterize what type of hospitals requested photocopied articles from JMLA libraries and what type of articles were sought by these hospitals. During 1981, 113 hospitals libraries throughouts Japan made 6021 requests for copies of journal articles from 22 JMLA libraries in the Kanto area. These included 1371 different journal titles. The percentage of borrowing requests from hospitals is 5.1% in the total ILL lending transactions of the 22 libraries. This study revealed that 94 hospital libraries (83%) belonged to one or more of the followiwg major hospital library organization: the Japan Hospital Library Association, the Association of Kinki Hospital Libraries and the Library Group of the Japan Hospital Association. On the contrary, 19 hospitals (17%) did not belong to any of them. Fifteen hospital libraries (13%) requested more than 100 photocopied articles, but 57 (50%) requested less than 10. Half of the requested articles were published between 1976 and 1981. Of the total borrowing requests, 635 (11%) could have been supplied from local hospital libraries, but only JMLA libraries could have filled the remaining 5385 (89%) requests. The 108 foreign journals and 24 Japanese journals requested most frequently were listed.

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The Kinki Hospital Library Association (57 members) has been stepping up its interlibrary loan activities. As the basic plan for systematizing these activities, the Association has provided continuing education to librarians and establised an explicit interlibrary loan code. For eight years since the founding of the Association, the following undertakings have been the main ones improved.
1) Publication of union list of serials
2) Setting the interlibrary loan post-card uniform
3) Standardizing the fee
4) Having the central library refer to the BLLD
5) Having the central library check the catalog
These have led to many practical results for the members. Now the interlibrary loan services have become operative in 80% of the member hospitals, and the number of interlibrary loan requests during 1981 totalled 8785. The Association will push foward and enlarge its activities in the future. On the other hand, the establishment of a formal nation-wide interlibrary loan network is desired.

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It is a matter of course that a hospital librarian should participate in and cooperate with hospital-based patient education as one of his activities, however, the present situation in Japan is far from this. In Kyoto Minami Hospital, “teach-ins for health” and “diabetes course” for patients with diabetes are held by the doctors, nurses, dietitians and other medical staff members, and according to the respective program patient education is being conducted. For the time being, the librarian has not yet participated directly in the programs, but if some programs require his cooperation by presenting necessary data or preparing the slides, this can actually be anticipated on occasion. This report deals with an example of hospital-based patient education based on some data prepared for that purpose as performed in this hospital library, referring to the patient library service (opened in 1970) for selection of useful data on diet, health care information for the patients, etc., while, at the same time, asking doctors and other medical staff members for their instructions.

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