Page 27 - JOURNAL OF LIBRARY SCIENCE IN CHINA 2018 Vol. 42

026 Journal of Library Science in China, Vol. 8, 2016

3.2 Population size and structure

The total population in Chinese Mainland (excluding Hong Kong, Macao Special Administrative
Region and Taiwan Province, as well as the number of overseas Chinese) is 1.367820 billion by
2014, population with working age between 16 years old to 60 years old (not including 60 years
old) is 915.83 million, which made up 67.0% of the total population; 60 years old and above
population is 212.42 million, accounting for 15.5% of the total population; 65 years old and
above population is 137.55 million, accounting for 10.1% of the total population. Urban resident
population is 749.16 million, rural resident population is 618.66 million, floating population is 253
million (National Bureau of Statistics of the People’s Republic of China, 2015). Compared with
the past, the aging population, the urban population and the floating population have all increased,
and the changes in population size and structure have put forward new requirements to the library.
The development of library should adapt to the change of population structure. The structural
factors, adults, children, the elderly, the floating population and the disabled population, should be
considered. A survey about 271 libraries showed that the number of libraries which were aware
of the physical disability of the elderly and provided practical assistance was still relatively small,
only 12.9% of the surveyed libraries, mainly located in the eastern region (51.4%) and provinces
and municipalities (68.6%), listed the facilities and equipment they offered and these libraries, and
only 15.5% of surveyed libraries have set up special reading and activity areas for the elderly (Xiao
& Zhou, 2013). In 2013, the collection of the library for the blind in our country is 832,500, and
the collection of audio-visual document is 13.5308 million (Library Society of China & National
Library of China, 2015). The number of people over 60 years old or older, suffering from dysaudia, is
23.3662 million. In addition, the services, provided for the elderly, are still relatively simple in content
and form, for which computer network training account the absolute proportion (77.6%) (National
Bureau of Statistics of the People’s Republic of China, 2015). A survey of World Bank showed public
libraries in China have not yet fully developed services that recognize the emerging realities of an
aging society, especially in rural areas (World Bank, 2014). What is more, library services should also
take their needs into consideration because of the new two-child policy. Dangdang Children’s Book
and Children’s Book Work Committee jointly organized the “Parent-Child Reading for 21 days” of
public welfare activities during the 2015 World Book Day. Chinese Parent-Child Reading in 2015
published by Answer Child indicated that children were eager to go to the library, but because of the
environment, the collection and so on, children did not fall in love with the libraries.
In 2013, the total visits of Chinese public libraries was 500 million, visits per person was 0.36,
which was 5.1 in the US (Wang, 2015), and 4-5 in Australia, the UK and Canada. Obviously,
the potential of library members in our country is great. Meanwhile, the differences between
regions are also obvious. In 2014, the number of physical visits per patron of the Shanghai Library
was 1.633, 0.995 for the Zhejiang Province, 0.233 for the Hunan Province, and 0.052 for Tibet
(Research Institute of National Library of China, 2015).