「工場図書室」の思想(上)

一工場内読書施設の生成と労働者統制一

抄録

The history of factory library in prewar Japan has attracted little attention from library historians. It was because the factory library operated as means of social control, that is, it was used to counter the growth of labor movements. However, it played very important role for the progress of factory proletarian readership. The aim of this article is to briefly outline the process of its development and to assess its meaning for Japanese modern library history.
After World War I, the factory libraries grew up in all types of industries, particularly in textile industries. With their proliferation, there came out great variation both in the size and the quality of them. Generally in the machine and chemistry industries the library was large and specialized, while in the textile industries the library was small and popular.
Contrary to accepted expectation, many of factory proletariat took advantages of the factory library services afforded them. It was because they had no public library facilities within their reach.