Page 155 - Journal of Library Science in China 2020 Vol.46

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154 Journal of Library Science in China, Vol.12, 2020

Field experience is very special in ELSY. Knowledge is not taught by instructors but acquired
from real work. Students in the field of school librarianship have to take these courses by doing
internship in school libraries. New technology makes virtual internship possible.
Managing the youth library covers topics on policy-making, staff management, general
management and so on. Although management is important in practice, only a small number of
courses cover the topic. School library management is the main focus.
Youth librarianship covers topics such as youth advocacy, censorship and intellectual freedom,
philosophy of youth services, professional resources, professional development, etc. Those topics
are the foundation of youth services but receive little attention. However, intellectual freedom is
frequently emphasized in the curriculum.
Courses on research are child-centered, focusing on youth culture and identity, youth
development, reading ability, reading needs and interests, and information needs and interests.
These courses have the smallest proportion in ELSY, reflecting the shortcomings of the training of
children’s librarians in LIS education.
In general, materials and youth services are the two most-emphasized topics in ELSY, with
new content incorporated constantly. The knowledge of managing the youth library and youth
librarianship has not received sufficient attention in the curriculum. The lack of courses on
children as persons is a shortcoming of the content of ELSY, which shows the direction of content
construction of ELSY curriculum in the future.

No.4

The logical structure and historical path of library and information science:
Reflection based on deduction and reasoning

〇a*
YU Liangzhi〇 & FAN Zhenjia
Against the backdrops of an increasing proliferation/specialization of information-related
disciplines and their challenges for library and information science (LIS), this study aims to achieve
three purposes. 1) To reveal the constellation of the most fundamental concepts underpinning the
traditional library science and the more recent LIS; 2) To deduce from these concepts the logical
structure of LIS’s body of knowledge; 3) To reflects on LIS actual development path by comparing
it to the deduced logical structure. The major method applied to achieve the above purposes is
logical deduction plus fact-based reasoning.
The study shows that the minimum constellation of concepts (minimum in that it is enough

* Correspondence should be addressed to YU Liangzhi, Email: lzhyu@nankai.edu.cn, ORCID: 0000-0003-0905-397X.