Page 44 - JOURNAL OF LIBRARY SCIENCE IN CHINA 2015 Vol. 41

Wugang JIN / A study on construction and accomplishment for the county level central-branch library system in China 043

3.1 Help and guidance from provincial-level libraries

Although the relationship between provincial-level and county-level libraries is not a superior-
and-subordinate one, provincial libraries are right in the position to provide guidance to county
libraries. As stated in the Provinces’ (Autonomous Regions’ , Municipalities’ ) library regulations
(1982) issued by the Ministry of Culture, “the provincial library stands in the central position
of cooperation, coordination, research and communication among all book collections, catalog
archives and libraries within the province”, and “it is the provincial library’s duty to guide the
public libraries within the province, mostly the libraries in municipalities (cities) and counties
(districts)”.
In fact, many provincial libraries provide county-level libraries with help and guidance that go
far beyond the scope of their duty in counseling. For instance, the Shanghai Library (provincial-
level library) has extended its services downtown to township libraries so that readers of the
township libraries can borrow and return at any provincial-level libraries and county-level libraries
using a “Smart Card” (S. W. Wang, 2006). The Sun Yat-sen Library (provincial-level library) in
Guangdong Province has launched the “Guangdong mobile library” program, with branch libraries
set up in the county-level libraries of less developed regions, such as the eastern, western and
northern parts of Guangdong Province. The provincial library purchases a certain munber of books
suitable for the local readers and distributes the books to the county libraries. The book resources
are circulated among the branch libraries every six months (Mo, 2007). The Chongqing Library
(provincial-level library) took the initiative to integrate service resources of all county-level
libraries in Chongqing. It has proposed a unified service standard and established the “Chongqing
public library service hotline” to offer the public related services (Hou & Cui, 2015).
Under the new circumstances, what else is expected of provincial-level libraries for the
establishment and full development of county-level central-branch library system? Based on
careful investigation, some experts suggest that provincial-level libraries should: 1) assist in
formulating provincial (local) public library development plans and standards; 2) fill in the gaps
in the county-level central-branch library system, such as meeting the research demands and
conducting research activities for county libraries or information centers that are unable to do so;
3) organize and coordinate the collaboration and resource sharing among libraries in the province,
build up a provincial system to guarantee resources, and create group-procurement and co-sharing
mechanisms of intra-provincial database resources; 4) back up the public libraries in the entire
province and, through inter-library lending or other forms of support, fulfill the needs where the
county-level central-branch library system and the regional network fail to do so; 5) establish
the provincial joint advisory platform to help medium-and small-sized libraries in their readers’
advisory services; 6) provide additional special resources; and 7) directly provide services to the
areas without public libraries, by mailing books or setting up mobile branch libraries (Qiu et al.,
2008, p.207).