Library and Information Science

There are increasing evidences that fewer and fewer students in colleges and universities are really able to cope with the complexity of bibliographic systems in the academic library of today. Library use instruction has been regarded as an essential library activity by many Japanese academic librarians. Attempts and devices for the recognition of importance of instruction for use, however, have never been enough successfully implemented in Japanese higher education. The writer reemphasizes needs of practical library user education for successful higher education, and reviews briefly developments of studies on library user education in the United States. Special remarks are made to the comprehensive and well organized program of user education of libraries developed recently at the University of Texas at Austin. To help the reader understand well, a translation of the Program at the University of Texas is attached. It is the writer’s conclusion that Japanese professional librarians are responsible to develope such a program of user education as implemented by the University of Texas Libraries so that the completion of instructional courses will evolve Japanese students’ attitude towards the library and higher education.