Page 220 - JOURNAL OF LIBRARY SCIENCE IN CHINA 2015 Vol. 41

Extended English abstracts of articles published in the Chinese Edition of Journal of Library Science in China 2015 Vol.41 219

different meaning with citation-based indicators, thus should be combined to use in evaluation.
2) Altmetrics indicators reflect visibility, popularity and societal impact. Altmetrics cover more
general scientific product users and reflect societal impact. 3) Altmetrics indicators based on data
source from the academia reflect more academic impact. Academic impact should undoubtedly be
limited to academic users, because users outside the academia cannot contribute citations. To sum
up, the key to properly using altmetrics indicators is to distinguish the application context.
Criticism to the validity of altmetrics can be summarized into three aspects.1) altmetrics
indicators bear the risk of being manipulated in large scale; 2) altmetrics data sources are not
scientific and rigorous enough; 3) part of altmetrics data source cannot be traced. Despite the
criticism, it must be made clear that these problems can be solved and avoided. 1) The risk of
manipulating altmetrics indicators in large scale can be avoided; 2) every altmetrics indicator
reflects users’ value judgment; 3) the establishment of altmetrics infrastructure makes the raw
altmetrics data easy to store and reuse.

The survival and development of UK public libraries under the global
financial crisis
∗
Lihong ZHOU, Ruhua HUANG1 & Tim ZIJLSTRA

This paper discusses the survival and development of the public libraries in UK under the current
global financial crisis, as well as the severe problems of public funding cuts, public library
closures, staff loss and significant decrease in service quality. Specifically, this paper discusses the
emergence, development and current situation of UK library crisis from three main perspectives,
namely, the UK government, the library community, and the general public. This paper aims to
articulate and provide useful indications and suggestions for the development of public libraries in
China.
This paper adopts an inductive interpretive philosophical lens and is developed based on
systematic retrieval, critical review and analysis of the existing literature. The analysis was
performed in four theoretical perspectives: the outburst of the global financial crisis, societal
changes under the impact of the economic recession, political response and change, as well as the
influences on UK public library and library service.
In order to obtain both holistic and in-depth understandings, the literature review includes
academic articles, statistics and official reports published by the UK government, public reports
and announcement published by various professional associations (such as the Chartered Institute
of Library and Information Professionals), and relevant news articles and comments on major
newspapers and web portals in UK. All articles selected had been published since 2008 and were

* Correspondence should be addressed to Ruhua HUANG, Email: rhhuang@whu.edu.cn