Page 233 - JOURNAL OF LIBRARY SCIENCE IN CHINA 2018 Vol. 42

232 Journal of Library Science in China, Vol. 8, 2016

From Chinese Bibliography to Japanese Bibliography:The development of
bibliography in Japan before the mid-twentieth century
FAN Fan ①a *

This study is to reveal the close connection between Chinese Bibliography and Japanese
Bibliography and to supply references for the development of Chinese Bibliography. Bibliography
in China and Bibliography in the Western countries were two independent systems. However,the
convergence of the two systems in Japan resulted in a new study of Books,Japanese Bibliography.
It developed rapidly in Japan. It has attracted some attention after it was introduced to China in
1934.
To uncover the deep influence of Chinese Bibliography on Japanese Bibliography,as well as the
great achievements and current status of Japanese Bibliography,the author reviewed the works on
Japanese Bibliography published from 1934 to the mid-twentieth century.
My studies indicated that along with its theoretical achievements,Japanese Bibliography
as a methodology was widely used and developed in practices. As its research scope became
wider,Japanese Bibliography was renamed Science of Books by the Japanese scholars of
library represented by Kikuya Nagasawa. Although the phrase is seldom used now,the research
achievements of Japanese Bibliography will not be out of date as those of Chinese Bibliography
will not. As Japanese Bibliography was created later,its high quality and broad scope are worth
our learning.
As for the theoretical achievements,when the concept of Western Bibliography was brought
into Japan at the beginning of the twentieth century,Japanese scholars began to study it with their
knowledge of Chinese Bibliography. They wrote many books on Japanese Bibliography,such as
Education and Library and An introduction to Japanese Bibliography by Yasushi Uematsu,An
introduction to Bibliography by Kei Tanaka,An Introduction to Western Bibliography by Seigoro
Kitsui, Cataloging of Foreign books and Library History by Mankichi Wada,Cataloging of
Japanese and Chinese books by Tamesaburo Ota,etc. Most of these books were trying to
understand and interpret Western Bibliography based on Chinese Bibliography,which resulted
in a new distinctive theory of bibliography,Japanese Bibliography. In Bibliography by Jukai
Komiyama in 1929,the author defined for the first time bibliography as a science that took books
as its study object,and classified studies on bibliography into comprehensive bibliography and
incomprehensive bibliography. This book marked that the studies on Japanese Bibliography had
risen to a new height.
In terms of its practical application,Bibliography as a methodology was consciously used
in the work of Japanese librarians. They set up Book Club and Japan Society of Bibliography
successively and issued Catalogue,Bibliography,and etc. in order to give the librarians a right
way of cataloguing,and effectively guide readers’ studies. By this way,they had established the
* Correspondence should be addressed to FAN Fan,Email:ffan@pku.edu.cn,ORCID:0000-0002-2124-9177