Library and Information Science

The purpose of this paper is to overview the recent tendency of the user education in Japanese university libraries. It is 1980s that libraries has begun to acknowledge the activity of instructing library users in group as regular services in Japan. The results of three major surveys on this topic done in last 10 years designate that many libraries have begun the user education of electronic sources such as OPAC, CD-ROM and online databases. To clarify this situation, the questionnaire was sent to all university libraries in Japan. 774 libraries (73.6%) responded. This survey shows the following points. 1) Uses of electronic sources has rapidly increased in Japanese university libraries. 2) The method of the user education of electronic sources is not established, and the equipments are not enough. It is considered that this caused from the uncertainty of the future electronic environment in libraries.