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048 Journal of Library Science in China, Vol. 7, 2015

District, Beijing (township/sub-district-level library) (X. Li, 2014), and the Peekabook House
English-Chinese Bilingual Library for Children at Juzhang Hutong in Stadium Road Sub-district
of Dongcheng District, Beijing (village/community-level library) (H. Zhang, 2014). These social
organizations are highly appreciated for their latest professional technologies, concepts or services
and their expertise and skills are most pertinent to the needs in library service provision.
In view of existing practices, introducing specialized social organizations to participate in library
operation and management can not only improve library service capacity and generate great social
benefits, but also save public expenditure to some extent and provide reference for the sustainable
development of primary-level libraries.

5 Conclusion

Local and central governments of China are responsible for the establishment of public libraries.
The implementation of the central-branch library system, as a major way of promoting the
balanced development of library services in both urban and rural areas, should therefore be part of
their responsibilities. Unfortunately, there remain 832 poverty-stricken counties with a population
1 ①
of around 310 million in the central and western regions in China, where the local governments
2 ②
are incapable of providing sufficient investments in the construction of county-level central-
branch library system. The longstanding shortage of funds and supplies has seriously hindered the
planning and development of public culture faculties at the primary level for years. Plus the lack of
professional library staff and the limited participation of social organizations, it is quite a challenge
for the local governments to build up the county libraries and make them work, relying merely on
their own resources and capabilities.
In conclusion, as pointed out in the Views on accelerating the construction of modern public
cultural services system, the following measures should be taken: according to the guidelines for
the national basic public culture services, service and resource gaps should be identified in the
former revolutionary base areas, areas inhabited by ethnic minorities, remote and border areas and
poverty-stricken areas, and a batch of culture poverty alleviation projects should be carried out upon
the requirement of taking targeted measures in poverty alleviation; assistance should be given in
promoting regional cooperative poverty alleviation and intensifying the exchange of personnel and
the support to projects; the special support plan for the culture workers in the former revolutionary

① According to the data released by the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development, there were
totally 592 counties identified as key counties for national poverty alleviation and development work. Later, in order to highlight the
major targets of poverty alleviation, 14 linked extremely-poverty-stricken areas were identified, including a total of 680 counties.
After the removal of the duplicate in the two batches, 832 counties were finally determined as poverty-stricken counties. Data
source: “The identification of key counties in national poverty alleviation and development work and linked extremely-poverty-
stricken areas” Retrieved January 19, 2015, from http://www.cpad.gov.cn/publicfiles/business/htmlfiles/FPB/gggs/201303/193790.
html.
② Data calculated based on the statistics from The manual of administrative division of Chinese towns and villages 2012 and The
2010 population census of China by towns, townships and sub-districts, using the names of counties released by the State Council
Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development.