Page 55 - JOURNAL OF LIBRARY SCIENCE IN CHINA 2018 Vol. 42

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

(3) The reading resources usage
There are three dimensions in the usage assessment. First is the reading level, i.e. the reading
status, needs and behaviors of citizens. The indicators include reading amount per capita, reading
length per capita, reading consumption per capita, digital reading, etc. Second is user satisfaction,
which is to conduct survey on national reading, like the satisfaction with the infrastructure,
resources, and service environment, so that developers and partners can find out the gaps timely.
Third is the reading literacy of children and adolescents. Childhood and adolescence are the
key periods to develop reading interests, habits and capacities, which have direct influences on
the development of the whole life. Evaluation on reading interests, attitudes, and capacities of
information access, inference, integration, and judgment of children and adolescents, as well as
their speaking and written skills, is conducive to grasping the actual situation of their reading
literacy, which can provide a basis for the follow-up service design.
(4) The relationship among production, transfer and usage
“Production-Transfer-Usage” cannot be completely separated, and they interrelate and promote
each another, which are mainly shown in three aspects. Firstly, production evaluation helps guide
publishers to provide high quality reading materials for readers. The variety of reading materials
can promote the development of library service network and commercial book service system
to some degree, which will encourage citizens’ involvement in the reading. Secondly, transfer
evaluation aims at directing related agencies to provide diversified reading services for readers,
to ensure that all the members of society “have books to read, want to read and read good
books”. The improvement of public culture service system and prosperity of book market, could
not only increase the social and economic benefits of publishers, but also solve the problem
of “nothing to read, nowhere to read” to some extent. Thirdly, usage evaluation is intended to
grasp the national reading status accurately. By relevant statistics and field research, it can help
publishers to understand readers’ interests and identify the publishing directions. Besides, it may
assist libraries and bookstores to know readers’ needs, figure out the problems in the service and
how to improve them.

3 The implementation scheme of the national reading assessment framework

3.1 The assessment subjects

According to the assessment levels, the subjects can be divided into four categories, which are the
national, local, sectoral administrators of national reading, and the primary units. Their tasks are
listed below in Table 1.