Book Reviews

Libraries and Librarianship in Japan. By Theodore F. Welch. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1997. 215 p. ISBN 0–313–29668–5.

The name of Ted Welch is a synonym for Japanese librarianship in the U.S. Anyone who reads his article on “information imbalance” in the l992 Proceedings of the Japan–U.S. Conference on Libraries and Information Science in Higher Education will be impressed with his analysis of Japan’s publishing statistics. In this volume, he once again has drawn from a wealth of rare source materials in both English and the vernacular languages to present an excellent account on a broader subject with a wider audience appeal: libraries and librarianship in Japan.

The volume begins with an historical survey of the cultural and literary elements surrounding the evolution and development of language, writing systems, paper, printing, and other activities which established the early patterns of library services. The chapters which follow deal with the organization, functions, and current issues of the various types of libraries at the national and local levels. In the area of contemporary librarianship, major topics such as bibliographic control, automation, library education, and professional associations are covered comprehensively.

It is interesting to note that an equal amount of text (approximately 20 pages) has been given to each of the ten chapters. Within the space limitations, most of the important issues and problems are raised and examined. The book strikes a delicate balance between qualitative interpretation and quantitative presentation.

Even this product of years of hard work by a veteran librarian is not without its flaws. For instance, the British Library is still referred to as the British Museum. In regard to reference works and bibliographies, the 1980 edition of Reference Books of Japan (Nihon no sanko tosho) is recommended as “an exhaustive single source.” In fact, updated guides to Japanese reference works are available, e.g., A Guide to Reference Books for Japanese Studies (The International House of Japan Library, 1989), and Japan and the Japanese: A Bibliographic Guide to Reference Sources (Greenwood Press, 1996).

Dr. Welch’s new book should be considered as a basic text for librarianship in Japan in the 1990s, just as Jesse Shera’s Introduction to Library Science (1976) was a premier book for U.S. library studies in the 1980s. It is a welcome addition to library and information science collections which emphasize international and comparative librarianship.

About the author

William S. Wong is East Asian Librarian, University of California Library, Irvine, California