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

An exploratory study on the construction of standards

and assessment of national reading based on multi-
dimensional integration

①a *
XIA Lixin , LI Chenglong & SUN Jingqiong
School of Information Management, Central China Normal University, Wuhan 430079, China

Abstract
In order to assess the achievements of national reading project and promote the project to be more
systematic, normative and standardized, the paper explores the evaluation system framework of national
reading from the dimensions of organizations, resources and users on the basis of summarizing existing
practices and experiences, and develops the multilevel and multidimensional assessment standard from
an integrative perspective. The assessment standard includes: 1) Organization dimension represents
the assessment subjects of national reading, which involves the administrators of the national level,
regional/sectoral level, and primary units. 2) Resource dimension reflects the content of national reading
assessment, covering the production, transfer and use of reading materials. 3) User dimension indicates
the value of assessment, which is all people centric. Readers could be divided into target groups according
to their occupation, age and ability. Furthermore, the promoting strategies are proposed for the assessment
standard, including making the standard operable, establishing data collection, statistics and feedback
mechanism, and incorporating national reading into the cultural development and performance evaluation.

Keywords
National reading, Assessment standard, Evaluation system, Index system

In 1997, the Publicity Department of the Communist Party of China (CPC), the Ministry of
Culture, the State Education Commission, the State Science and Technology Commission and
other five ministries issued the Notice on Developing the Knowledge Engineering Nationwide,
and set up the national “Knowledge Engineering” workgroup to “advocate reading, disseminate
knowledge, and promote social civilization and progress”. The workgroup named December as
the National Reading Month in 2000, and transferred the program to the Library Society of China
in 2004. On April 5, 2006, the State Administration of Press, along with the Publicity Department
of CPC, the Civilization Office of CPC, the Ministry of Culture and other six ministries jointly
issued the Proposal on Developing the National Reading Program, which indicated that Chinese
government has paid greater attention to the program. The Decision of the Central Committee of
the Communist Party of China on Some Major Issues Concerning Comprehensively Deepening
the Reform and Promoting Vigorous Development and Prosperity of Socialist Culture in October

* Correspondence should be addressed to XIA Lixin, Email: xialx@mail.ccnu.edu.cn, ORCID: 0000-0002-4162-2282