Libraries and Librarianship in Japan

Citation

Min Yee, H. (1998), "Libraries and Librarianship in Japan", Asian Libraries, Vol. 7 No. 2, pp. 66-67. https://doi.org/10.1108/al.1998.7.2.66.9

This publication provides an indepth discussion of the many facets of librarianship in Japan, including the history of libraries, the National Diet Library, academic and public libraries, school and special libraries, bibliographic control and services, automation, professional library associations, and library and information science education. In each chapter Welch both provides detailed analysis of the Japanese situation and makes relevant comparisons with libraries in other countries, showing how the Japanese have been influenced by ideas from elsewhere and how they have adapted these to local needs. The result is a library and information services sector that is both reliant on foreign influence and innovative in how it utilises overseas experience.

One example of this adaptation to unique national requirements is Japan’s system of legal deposit. The National Diet Library collects all indigenous materials through a deposit system like any other national library, but it is required to pay the publisher about half of the item’s commercial price. Perhaps the most important example of how foreign influences and local requirements interact to produce unique solutions is in the area of cataloguing and classification. The Nippon Cataloguing Rules, now in its eighth edition, is used for Japanese‐Chinese cataloguing, and AACR2 is used for foreign works. Because the Dewey Decimal Classification, with its eurocentric, Christian orientation, is quite inappropriate for Japan’s Buddhist culture, the Nippon Decimal Classification, also in its eighth edition, is used in most libraries in Japan ‐ but is clearly based on the principles of DDC. It is through examples such as these that Welch presents us with a broad understanding of the library scene in Japan.

The work lacks a glossary of Japanese terms used in the chapters, and this detracts from the author’s otherwise lucid presentation. In other respects the content is clearly and logically arranged, beginning with the history of libraries and ending with library and information science education. There is a dearth of publications on Asian librarianship, and especially Japanese librarianship, so Welch’s informative monograph is a welcome addition to the small corpus of literature in this field. Welch, also the author of Toshokan: Libraries in Japanese Society (1976), has used his wealth of knowledge to produce an extremely informative work which is highly recommended for collections of comparative or Asian librarianship.