Library and Information Science

It is said that information environments are said to be different from district to district. This paper analyzes information environments in 47 prefectures of Japan on 1975, 81, 86, from the view of accessbility to information. ‘Information Accessbility’, that represents possibility of one's getting information, is introduced as an index for analyzing information environments. Also the information industry and information media are considered to be access points to information.

Main findings are as followings; 1) information environments in all parts, of Japan are different in both quantity and quality, 2) access points to information are especially rich in Tokyo and Osaka, 3) in getting information, the information industry is more utilized in urban, information media in rural, 4) The number of corporations of the information industry per 1,000 km² is quite different among 47 prefectures, but the number of workers of the information industry per 100,000 workers are almost same, 5) there are many private corporations such as ‘information services’ in urban, public corporations in rural, 6) corporations of the information industy are sprawling, 7) more printing media are prevailed in urban, electric media in rural, 8) more and more information media are getting used year by year, especially in rural sphere.