Library and Information Science

To identify textbooks currently used for the courses of library and information science education in Japan, questionnaires were sent to 365 full-time teachers in the field selected from 769 teachers listed in the Directory of the Educators in Library Science (1974).

Responses were received from 124 of them (34.1% of the teachers queried). Of these, 89 were using 147 textbooks, including 28 American or British titles and 5 translated editions of American titles. Fourteen of these 28 were found listed in the Library and Information Science Textbooks-In-Use: A Master Checklist, compiled by K. Hsu and V. P. Diodato. One in the rest of 14 was also found in two lists of information science textbooks, compiled by Jack Belzer and his colleagues in 1971 and 1975. Another one was in the Bowker Annual's lists of “Basic publications for librarian”. Five of them were very recent publications and not listed in any of them.

Examination of 114 Japanese titles revealed the following facts; (1) as many as 25 books reported (29.9%) were the publications by the Japan Library Association, (2) there were 36 titles (31.6%) which were of some series publications, (3) 52 titles (45.6%) were textbooks which were written by the teachers for their own courses, and 42 of these were being used only by the author himself, (4) the most popular textbook was a general textbook covering all aspects of library science which was compiled to serve in short training courses for teacher librarians.

These findings led to the following suggestions and conclusions:

1. It is advisable to promote utilization of textbooks which were prepared by other teachers for their own courses.
2. Some more textbooks are needed in newer subject fields such as information science and systems management.
3. More foreign textbooks of good quality should be used in education for library and information science in Japan.
4. More foreign textbooks of good quality should be translated into Japanese.
5. Other textbooks should be used along with the present popular ones in training for teacher librarians.