U nder the current 8ituation w here people’s concern about the community welfare has been increased, this study aims at clarifying the tendency of academic journal8 in covering the subject of community welfare along with the change of the times, by analyzing the appearance frequency of the terms related to the community welfare, 8uch a8 “NPO," “ residents’ participation," safety net," “ welfare sphere," “ regional network," “community work," and “ citizens’ network," appearing in the titles of the academíc journals. NDL-OPAC, a literature-searching system of the National Diet Library, was used for searching articles of the journals. About 10,000 journals published in Japan, composed mainly of academic journals, were retrieved in the NDL-OPAC system. The articles which appeared during 23 years from January 1, 1980 through December 31 , 2003 were analyzed in this study. The analysis in terms of annual changes found that the terms “residents’ participation" , “ welfare sphere", and "community work" were already used in 1980, while "regional network" in 1984, “ citizens’ network" in 1987, safety net" in 1990, and “NPO" in 1992, was started in its usage, respectively. Subject matters of the articles that contain the terms related to the community welfare in titles were considered and classified, with a result showing a wide spectrum of subjects, including “ welfare ," “ administration," “community designing," “ employment," and “ information," as well as “ NPO" and “ cil'cumstances in foreign countries." Judging from the increase of household of elderly people, the aging of disabled people living in facilities, and the increase of severity of the disabled people in those facilities , it is considered that the community welfare activities by the service offer with more strengthened linkage among health care , medical care , and welfare , as well as by volunteer service by local people. Next phase of this study will be to analyze comprehensively how the subject of community welfare is dealt by mass media, by carrying out an equivalent study extended to the media such as newspapers and books, other than academic journals, about how each term has been treated.