Abstract

This research started from bringing up a problem about special situation of the library and information science, which is not easy to investigate its academic characteristics, although it has settled down as a powerful science studying related phenomena as well as education required for the whole process from production of information to consumption of it. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to questingly investigate whether the personal specialty and the experience of taking courses affect recognition of the term ‘library and information’, and if so, through which channel it influences. In this background, data were collected from 328 students of Chonnam National University for this research, and the following are the analysis results: first, as for the personal characteristics, differences were not generated according to gender and age, but according to scholastic year the results were different; second, as for the experience of taking courses, there were not differences according to whether or not of the experience, but the results varied according to the number and type of the experience; and third, most of the respondents surveyed understood the meaning of a term ‘library and information’ as the conception of covering the information contained in literature and information of it, regardless of the personal characteristics and the experience of taking courses. Through these results, it can be identified that the term ‘library and information’ meant in the library and information science is generally understood as expansion of range, rather than chemical combination of literature and information, it is a terminology with various meanings sometimes understood differently according to the special personal experiences, and it also needs scientific investigation of it.