Page 22 - JOURNAL OF LIBRARY SCIENCE IN CHINA 2018 Vol. 42

CHEN Chuanfu, FENG Changyang & CHEN Yi / Library development model of normalized 021
transformation toward the comprehensive building of a moderately prosperous society

3,112 county level or above public libraries in China, and the library books per capita was 0.55
copies. Compared to the standards including 1.5-2.5 library books per capita, optimum coverage
radius, and quantity of patrons, there is a significant gap (Wu, 2015). In 2014, there were 3,117
public libraries, over 56,071 employees, 39.44 million library cards issued, 530.36 million visits,
467.34 million books borrowed, and the number of people who had borrowed books was 227.37
million (Ministry of Culture of the People’s Republic of China, 2015). However, according to the
latest statistics from the American Library Association, there are estimated 16,536 public library
buildings in the United States today, 8,895 central buildings, 7,641 branch buildings (ALA, 2015).
According to data released by the National Library Research Institute in September 2014, in
2013, the proportion of public library card holders was 2.5% in China, 68% in the US, 58% in UK
(Wang, 2015). The Eleventh National Reading Survey Report in 2014 showed that Chinese adults’
reading amount in 2013 was 4.77 per capita, which was far less than 11 in Korea, 20 in France
and 54 in Israel. There is a large gap between China and world in the number of libraries, library
collection per capita, library card number to the national reading level. The new requirements
are raised for the building of moderately prosperous society, and there is great potential for the
development of libraries, facing opportunities and challenges. Therefore, libraries have great
potential for development, as well as opportunities and challenges.

2.1 Serving economic growth

The sustainable and stable development of economy could offer material basis for building a
moderately prosperous society. The goal of doubling GDP and per capita income by 2020 on the
basis of 2010 figures was set in CPC Central Committee’s Proposal on Formulating the Thirteenth
Five-year Plan (2016-2020) on National Economic and Social Development (Proposal for the 13th
Five-Year Plan). Libraries need to serve the economic development in many fields through their
natural advantages. “Knowledge capital” has become the most active and decisive factor in the
production factors in economic activities. Knowledge services will play an increasingly important
role in all the basic aspects of the knowledge economy (Ren, 2014). Libraries could not directly
create economic value, but data has become an important asset in the data-driven economic
development tide. As key institutions storing data and information, libraries play a crucial role
in helping people choose data, evaluate data, and link data and give full play to data. In addition,
as an important part of public cultural products, service supply, libraries should make the unique
advantages of resources and services, position reasonably, break through the traditional service
functions, innovate service mode, enhance consciousness of service economy, and become a
supporting mechanism of innovation.