Abstract

Kunizo Nakata(1897-1956) was one of famous leaders of public librarians in Japan. Some people discussed his practices such as reading education for the young in agricultural villages. But he was also a theorist, and his theory of library studies has not been discussed enough. The representative fields of Nakata's studies are 1)"philosophy of the library," 2)"study about readers as library targets" and 3)"study of reading."
In order to understand the background of Nakata's studies, his student life and his basic view of society are discussed in Chapter 1. In his school days, he studied Zen(Buddhism), Taoism, German philosophy of idealism and philosophy of Kitaro Nishida, who is said to be the first Japanese philosopher. He was also interested in agricultural villages. Criticizing the commercialism of capitalism, he held an idea that agricultural villages should be welfare society. As he thought the main cause of all social problems is lack of education, he regarded education as most important in society.
"Philosophy of the library" is discussed in Chapter 2. It was a trial to make the essence of library clear and a quest how every library should be. Nakata thought that books are expression of authors' personalities and reading books is reappearance of them. And he thought the essence of library is the function of connecting books with readers adequately. This mind is called "library spirit," and regarded as the conceptual basis of all libraries. He also held an idea of "central-library spirit," which is like maternal affection. It seems to be a unique idea, but it met oppositions by city librarians. "Philosophy of the library" seems similar to the idea of "clinical philosophy," which has appeared recently as new philosophical field of practical professions.
"Study about readers as library targets" is discussed in Chapter 3. Nakata thought that there are many studies about books, but only few about readers. He thought that the lack of studies about readers disables libraries from achieving their aims. He compared a library to a living thing which has two functions. Seikatsu-kinou or "the function of the social life of library" and Seiri-kinou or "physiological function of library." The former is the main function of libraries which connect books with people, what we say "public services" today. The latter means to accomplish the former function, what we say "technical services." He also divided people into three or five groups by their reading abilities. He thought that each library should investigate its target groups and make maps to show the reading ability of them. But Nakata himself couldn't complete to make one. This theory seems to be a kind of user studies, which discussed very often in the West after World War II.
"Study of reading" is discussed in Chapter 4. Nakata's original concept called "reading subjectivity" is a special condition of consciousness distinguished from usual consciousness. By using this, people can understand higher state of mind expressed in books. This idea seems equivalent to depth psychology of C.G.Jung. Readers are supposed to deepen their reading ability. Nakata also divided many patterns of reading by readers' sense of purpose, that is, "subjective reading," "objective reading" and "life-oriented reading." This dialectical view of reading seems to be influenced by Hegelian philosophy.
As a whole, the theory of Nakata's studies is a study about "the function of the social life of library." The three fields of the studies are complementary to one another. "The philosophy of the library" is a logical approach, while "the study of readers as library targets" is quantitative and "the study of reading" is qualitative. Nakata's theory, which includes library philosophy, user studies and reading psychology, should be paid much attention from the viewpoint of the history of library and information science.