摘要：Information activities of hospital libraries are reported by types of institutions. There are 162 general hospitals in Chugoku, Shikoku area.: 64 public, 48 private, 39 national and 11 social welfare hospitals. In a total of 66 special hospitals, there are 55 private, 7 public, 4 national and no social welfare hospitals. A total of 146 among these 228 hospitals were investigated. Major findings are: (1) The public hospitals have more libraries and full-time library staff members than any other institutions. (2) As for the number of books held, the maximum was 20, 000 books in one of the public hospitals, and the minimum was 100 books in one of the private hospitals. (3) As for the number of serials received, the maximum was 150 titles for both domestic and foreign journals in one of the social welfare hospitals and the minimum was two for domestic and none for foreign journals in one of the private hospitals. (4) Only general public and private hospitals obtain information through the inter-library loan systems from university libraries and from foreign information networks. (5) About half of the hospitals where enough information for JMLA is available expressed their desire to join JMLA. However, even 7 or 8 percent of the hospitals where little or no information about JMLA was available expressed their desire to join JMLA. Through this investigation, it is recommended that JMLA propose minimum standards for professional health science library services in hospitals in Japan and that JMLA participate in their CE courses.
