In the age of a surfeit of information, an important issue is how we select suitable information and use it effectivly. In American education the concept of critical thinking has come to public consciousness, because it is believed that teaching critical thinking improves thinking skills and information literacy, but emphases upon it differ between Japan and America.
With this in mind, this paper discusses the idea that critical thinking skills can be at the core of thinking skills and/or evalluation skills, and argues that they are useful for improving information literacy in Japanese library instruction.

View full abstract

In the former paper (OHBA 1994), the author elucidated that bases of the separation of professional and nonprofessional duties in American public libraries was established during the 1920s to the 1950s. The purpose of this paper is to clarify the developmental process of the separation of professional and nonprofessional duties in circulation work in American public libraries during the same period. For this study，32 literatures on the separation of duties in circulation work were gathered, and changes of related facts on circulation work were analyzed.
As the results, following facts were elucidated.
1) In the position classification plan of the American Library Association (1939), professional personnels took charge of nonprofessional duties in circulation work as a regular routine until they had taken a certain amount of experience.
2) In the process of separation of professional and nonprofessional duties in circulation work, (1) improvement of charging systems and (2) improvement of circulation desks were made.
3) After the 1930s, under the professional personnel's supervision, nonprofessional personnels came to take charge of circulation work gradually.
4) In the 1950s, separation of duties in circulation work was realized in large public libraries, but it was difficult in small public libraries because of fewer personnels and lesser budget. Therefore, in small public libraries, there were subprofessional personnels who shared both of professional and nonprofessional duties.

View full abstract

The application of the marketing theory to the librarianship is discussed and practiced energetically, especially in Europe and USA in recent years. In Japan, the interest in marketing is increasing gradually in the library world, but until now the library marketing has been hardly planned and practiced properly in the real library scene. This fact does not mean that there was no activity which was carried out from a marketing viewpoint.I tried to clarify the significance and the points of issue of an unintentional marketing activity: via library service, which was done at the National Diet Library of Japan. This analysis, I think, could be helpful for the full introduction of the marketing theory to the Japanese librarianship.

View full abstract