Library and Information Science

The purpose of this paper is to find out the characteristics of library and information science studies in Japan. A content analysis was performed on about 1,065 articles of library and information studies. These articles were sampled from 21 journals or bulletins published from 1955 to 1985 each 5 years. Some categories of theme and method of research were used to analyze the contents of those articles. These categories are as follows: (1) 3 main categories of theme for library and information center, flow of information, and library and information science. (2) 4 main categories of method for quantitative, historical, operational, and descriptive studies. (3) Categories of author affiliation for types of library and universities.

The results are as follows: (1) Research on flow of information is more than library and information center between 1975 to 1985, while reseach on library is more than flow of information until 1975. (2) Quantitative method is increased from 8.0% (1955) to 20.3% (1985), while descriptive method is decreased from 64.0% to 30.4%. (3) Researchers affiliated universities are increased from 3.8% (1955) to 28.1% (1985), while public librarians are decreased from 46.2% to 13.6%.