Page 214 - JOURNAL OF LIBRARY SCIENCE IN CHINA 2018 Vol. 42

Extended English abstracts of articles published in the Chinese edition of Journal of Library Science in China 2016 Vol.42 213

Survey and reflection on the status of corporate governance of the public
library
HUO Ruijuan ①a *

Establishing corporate governance is a new measure of public library management in China in the
21st century. According to the relevant requirement,the demonstration of reform was carried out
in libraries,some of which have turned into the implementation stage. However,there are certain
hindrances in the process of establishing corporate governance for the public library. To the public
libraries which have accomplished the reform,many problems still exist during the operation of
the corporate governance；the library board could not actually play an important role in the library
management. A comprehensive survey on the status of the corporate governance reform of the
public library was conducted in this paper. The purpose of the survey is to find out problems and
offer solutions,and to provide a reference for promoting the further development of the corporate
governance of the public library.
Based on the methods including literature investigation,questionnaire and field survey,a survey
was carried out on the corporate governance of public libraries in counties,cities and provinces
throughout China and the data of the status of the corporate governance of 9 provincial and
municipal public libraries and 53 public libraries on municipal and county level was collected. After
the analysis of the data collected from the survey,the following hindrances to the establishment
and operation of the corporate governance of public libraries throughout the country were found:
the reform is lack of the bases at the legislative level；the powers and responsibilities of the
government and the library are not clear；the library board’s personnel composition,positioning
and role are not well defined. Aiming at these problems,the corporate governance of the public
library can be improved from the following aspects: promote the introduction of the Public Library
Law as soon as possible and pay attention to the subsequent revision and improvement；establish
the library board’s decisive position,clarify the powers and responsibilities of the public library
and the government；establish professional committee,improve the decision support system；
promote the publicity of management and operation,construct social evaluation and supervision
mechanism.
The Library Society of China should play an active role in the establishment and improvement
of the corporate governance of public library: 1)Promote and advocate the concept of corporate
governance；2)Take the lead to set and improve the library board’s rules；3)Take the lead
to evaluate the status of the establishment and operation,providing references for the relevant
departments.

* Correspondence should be addressed to HUO Ruijuan,Email:huorj@nlc.cn,ORCID:0000-0003-2055-1769