The improvements in quality of LIS Education through the mutual international exchanges of students in the East Asia

A great deal of useful content now does not go through the publishing process is going directly online by blog or wiki. At present, academic libraries are undergoing a radical transformation deriving from changes in teaching and learning, new information technologies, and the new needs of students. The academic curriculum has been a matter of interest worldwide, as library schools have embraced information studies and have sought to determine the appropriate changes useful to the profession. The popularity of offering practical experience as a part of library education has fluctuated over the years, largely due to differing opinions on the importance of such programs to Library and Information Science (LIS) education. There is no consensus about what to call the practical experience in LIS programs. However, the practical experience across borders, in other words, the international internship, in LIS programs is gaining in importance in the East Asia. In recent years, a growing need of international collaboration to expand the university education and research has attracted attention in Japan. Tsukuba University as the largest organization to provide the LIS program in Japan developed an international internship program. In general, the international internship program aims to help students to develop world-wide communication skills and to gain a greater insight into the information and knowledge specialists abroad through work experience. In this paper, precious experiences in mutual exchange of students as the international internship between Shih Hsin University in Taiwan and Tsurumi University in Japan were explained and discussed.