纪念刘国钧先生提出“四要素”学说90周年

Commemorating the 90th Anniversary of Mr.Liu Goujun’s Proposal of the“Four Elements”Theory

用要素的方法研究事物,源于古时对自然哲学的研究。1918年,中国图书馆界开始运用要素的方法研究图书馆。20世纪20—30年代,用要素的方法研究图书馆学的代表人物是杜定友和刘国钧。杜定友提出“三位一体”理论,刘国钧则集大成地提出“四要素”“五要素”学说。在要素说的基础上,我国在20世纪60年代提出“矛盾说”,80年代又运用要素说的理论提出“文献交流说”。“要素说”成为中国图书馆学理论中领先于当时大多数西方图书馆学理论、可与美国巴特勒的理论并列的重要学说,具有中国图书馆学理论中的“经典”性。

The use of elements to study phenomena originated from ancient studies of natural philosophy.In 1918,the Chinese library community began to use the element-based approach to study libraries.In the 1920s and 1930s,representatives of the library science community who used the element-based approach were Du Dingyou and Liu Guojun.Du Dingyou proposed the“Trinity”theory,while Liu Guojun comprehensively proposed the“Four Elements”and“Five Elements”theories.Building upon the foundation of element theories,China put forward the“Contradiction Theory”in the 1960s and the“Literature Exchange Theory”in the 1980s.The element theory has become a significant theory in Chinese library science,leading many Western library science theories at the time and standing alongside theories by American scholar Butler,and is considered a“classic”in Chinese library science theories.