Page 18 - JOURNAL OF LIBRARY SCIENCE IN CHINA 2018 Vol. 42

Library development model of normalized

transformation toward the comprehensive building of a
moderately prosperous society ①a

①b *
CHEN Chuanfu , FENG Changyang & CHEN Yi
School of Information Management, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, China

Abstract
The years 2016 to 2020 will be an important historical period for library development which will
present not only unique opportunities, but also risks and challenges, during which “transformational”
development becomes a common feature for libraries around the world. In China, however, libraries
should adjust their way of development, according to the national goal of comprehensively constructing
a moderately prosperous society, determine their direction for proper development, integrate themselves
into the mainstream of social and economic development of the country, and be part of the national
strategic planning. Using surveys, case analysis, policy research, and comparative analysis, the authors
analyze libraries’ normalized trend from 2016 to 2020, propose the concept of library normalized
transformation development. The authors identify expectations of the society for libraries in terms of
serving economic growth, raising development quality and efficiency, promoting cultural and social
construction as well as ecological civilization under the national goal of comprehensively building a
moderately prosperous society. The authors believe that Chinese libraries should respond to challenges
in the new normal: slowing growth of investment and budget, demographic changes, the increasing
competition from other institutions and emerging technologies, library administration, library staff
and new technologies. Facing new societal expectations, libraries must actively seek new models for
development by initiating new and innovative management methods and services, which the authors
believe will have the following characteristics: connotative development, balanced development,
improvement for people’s wellbeing, law-based regulation, and innovative development.

Keywords
Library, Development model, Moderately prosperous society, Normalization, Transformation

0 Introduction

The years 2016 to 2020 will be an important historical period for development of librarianship.
This period is positioned as the decisive phase of building a moderately prosperous society in
China’s 13th Five-Year Plan (The Eighteenth Central Committee of the Communist Party of China,
2015) and the post-financial crisis period in Occident (Sun, 2012).“Transformational” is generally
considered as the common feature for global librarianship (Crum, 2007).“Editor’s note” column in

①a This article is an outcome of the major project “A Countermeasure Research on Value-added Utilization of Public Sector
Information in China”（No. 09&ZD039）supported by National Social Science Foundation of China.
* Correspondence should be addressed to CHEN Chuanfu, E-mail: cfchen@whu.edu.cn, ORCID:0000-0003-1163-7691