[Part 2] Yoko Hamana, Vice President

I have been working as a university teacher for more than 30 years since I started working at a junior college, and the changes in the university library have been astonishing.

When I was a graduate student, searching for literature in the university library meant actually going around the bookshelves and looking for books, or opening the lids of magazine shelves and looking for back issues of papers. .In addition, the list of books and magazines in the collection is a paper card, and it is arranged in a number of small drawers.And the university library is a place to read or study quietly, and the librarians would warn me if I talked even a little.

Nowadays, many university libraries are called “media libraries”, most papers have been digitized, and when searching for documents, you can enter a keyword and a list will appear immediately. rice field. A learning commons space has been set up for everyone to learn through the literature, rather than doing it alone.Libraries can be said to be a storehouse of knowledge, but the way we approach it and the way we acquire knowledge (learning methods) are changing dramatically.

Even so, I like to go around the shelves and look at the books without any particular purpose. When I was a high school student, that time was Saturday afternoons when classes ended in half a day. , I thought that if I went to university, I would be able to get a little closer to that.It was to know my ignorance, but it was also a hope that someday I might be able to touch it.

Dear students, touching various academic worlds is to expand your world, and even if it is virtual, learning is hope. Please feel it.Regardless of whether it leads to a job or not, it can also be a “spiritual cane” (a phrase by haiku poet Itsuki Natsui) for living.

By the way, I would like to introduce one book that has become a "stick of the spirit" for me. VE Frankl (Author), Kunio Yamada (Translator), Mika Matsuda (Translator) "Still say yes to life". (Published by Shunjusha, translated in 1) Author Frankl is a psychiatrist.He is also famous for "Night and Fog," which describes his experience in a Nazi concentration camp.I won't give away any spoilers, so please take a look at the books in the library.