The 91st All-Japan Library Conference

The 91st All-Japan Library Conference was held for 3 days from 26th to 28th October, 2005 in Ibaraki Prefecture. The All-Japan Library Conference, sponsored by the Japan Library Association (JLA) and held every autumn, provides a good opportunity for people from various libraries in Japan to discuss and exchange opinions on library matters. Among 12 section meetings, the contents of the meetings of the School Libraries Section and the Library Services for Children and Young Adults Section are as follows;

Section on School Libraries

In the keynote speech and case studies reported, under the section theme of "Cooperation between school libraries and public libraries," the importance of such cooperation, and of posting a librarian in each school library, was stressed.

Since November 2002 the International Library of Children's Literature (ILCL) has provided a Selected Book Sets Lending Service to school libraries, to help school children know more about other countries and their people. An ILCL staff member attended the meeting and reported on this lending service in the sub-session titled "School librarians (gakko shisho) and teacher-librarians (shisho kyoyu）making better school libraries." The report stressed the importance of cooperation between public libraries and school libraries and the significance of librarians in school libraries, because the Selected Book Sets Lending Service does not work effectively without them.

Section on Library Services for Children and Young Adults

A pediatrician gave a keynote speech titled "Children and media: their influence on children's development" under the section theme of "Children's reading in the information society." He explained how videopackages for infants influence them, and how computer games or the Internet influence school age children, referring to examples and research results. He also mentioned the problems of the parents who expose their children to these media without much care, and education for media literacy. After the speech, a panel discussion was held, inviting people who have opportunities for close contact with children, such as librarians from a small neighborhood library and a public library and a school teacher. They discussed the problems, referring to their own experiences in their libraries.