Librarians played a crucial role in serving the library patrons. They were also gatekeepers to the library resources.

In his essay, Guo Xuehu mentions how librarians would show him books from the special collection (tokubetsusho). Books from the special collections were marked as "toku" ("special") next to their call number in the catalogue. Many of such books were lavishly published volumes with reproductions, such as the Shinbi taikan (Selected Relics of Japanese Art), Nihon kokuhō zenshū (National Treasures of Japan), or the annual catalogues of the official salon in Tokyo. To view these books, a patron needed to obtain a special permission from the library's director and provide a justification (Taiwan sotokufu toshokan gairan, Showa 13/1938 p. 12). Librarian Lin Jingou (1904-1989) helped Guo Xuehu obtain this special permission (Compare New Visions, p. 27).