Historical Research in Current Issues of Intellectual Behavior

Focusing on the History of Libraries

Abstract

It is frequently said that the intellectual climate has changed enormously. The alleged decline in the cultural knowledge of young people is often cited as the main reason for this. But, old patterns of cultural behavior cannot be continued as the intellectual practice of a modern society. We need a new standard of intellectual behavior appropriate to the “information age”. To respond to this issue, I examine the lack of intellectual behavior in Japanese modernization. Focusing on the history of libraries, I examine the changes in the links between intellectual concerns and the academic discipline.