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154 Journal of Library Science in China, Vol.9, 2017

disciplines. 4)Empirical studies are the mainstream in this area. Survey is mostly used. In terms
of data analysis, statistical analysis, especially structural equation analysis, is the main method. 5)
Some problems exist, such as lack of theoretical thinking, limited research methods, ignorance of
intervening and moderating variables, and weakness of research on technology acceptance theory.
With the development of new IT, technology acceptance theories will be applied to more domains.
More research methods will be used to propose integrated theoretical models. The present study
is different from the previous studies via bibliometric analysis and literature review；it focuses
on the research process, design, and specific research methods, as well as new variables and
theories. It is not only concerned with external characteristics of the literature, but also the topics,
variables, and theories. The study can assist researchers to comprehensively understand the status
quo, features, and issues in this area and direct them to examine the related issues further. The
limitations of the study include: 1)The research sample only covers journal papers；theses or
dissertations are excluded. 2)The main purpose of this study is aimed at analyzing the research
in China；the papers published in international journals are not involved. Future studies will try
to fill in this gap by examining technology acceptance model in depth, exploring the types of the
variable, and examining effect size of intervening and core variables.

The public libraries under the context of information poverty reduction:
Functions and role
〇a*
ZHOU Wenjie〇 & BAI Yu

The purpose of this study is to explore the widespread information divide among the users of
public libraries in urban and rural contexts and to test the hypotheses of whether the physical
existence of public libraries and the actual use of these libraries benefits the accumulation of users’
information assets. Based on a user-centered perspective, this research aims to shed light on the
functions and role of public libraries under the context of the information society.
The present study selected The Scale of Individuals’ Information Worlds developed by Professor
Yu Liangzhi et al. as the instrument and measured 754 residents in Dongguan city, Guangdong
province and 990 residents in rural areas of Gansu province. Based on the questionnaire
investigation, the present study conducted cluster analysis, independent samples t-test and
regression analysis to meet the research purpose.
Findings of this research include: 1)for the users of public libraries, potentially or actually,
widespread information divides are existing among both urban and rural users. 2)There is no
evidence to show that urban users have more advantages on the amount of information assets
compared to their counterparts who live in rural areas no matter whether they are initially from

* Correspondence should be addressed to ZHOU Wenjie, Email: wj_lp@sina. com, ORCID: 0000-0001-8001-4530