Library and Information Science

This may be the first comprehensive history ever written on the subject. Using as resource materials most dependable library records such as Calendar of Tokyo Municipal Hibiya Library: 1908–1918 and Tokyo Municipal Libraries and Their Activities: 1921–1938, and published histories such as 80 years of Chiyoda Ward Library (1968) and Brief History of Tokyo Metropolitan Public Libraries: 1872–1968 (1969), the author traced development of public library services for children from the earliest example in 1887 through rising and widening period of the first thirty years of the twentieth century till forced decline and complete loss during the war.

The author tells in chapters 1 and 2 early history until opening of the children's room in Tokyo Hibiya Library in 1908, and in Chapter 3 administrative problems; services for children under such topics as use of the libraries, extension services; reading trend of the children seen through use of library collections, and story telling program; and conditions of lending collections during the period.

The author is now retired from the practice after serving for almost half a century as a children's librarian and has added the most valuable contribution to the history of children's libraries in Japan by her theses.