Page 43 - JOURNAL OF LIBRARY SCIENCE IN CHINA 2018 Vol. 43

LI Guoxin & ZHANG Yong / On accelerating the renaissance of public libraries in Central China 043

Central and Eastern China in recent years (see Table 4).

Table 4. Comparison of per capita service costs of main indicators of public libraries
Indicator Region 2011 2015 Variation (%)
Central 18.23 21.11 ↑15.80
Per circulation person (Yuan)
East 17.62 17.84 ↑1.25
Central 22.81 25.80 ↑13.11
Per volume (Yuan)
East 23.31 19.46 ↓19.78
Central 307.52 320.63 ↑4.26
Per reader with a card
East 301.91 149.65 ↓102

Comparing the Central and Eastern regions in recent five years, the per capita service costs of
main indicators in Eastern public libraries presented a downward trend, and some indicators even
fell sharply; whereas per capita service costs in Central region showed an upward trend. Therefore,
it could be concluded that the per capita service costs of public libraries in Central China had
increased.

1.5 The formation time of Central lowland

For a long time, similar to many other aspects, the overall trend of the development of China’s
public libraries has been following the ranking: the East, the Central and the West. What is the
exact time point when the West caught up and even surpassed the Central and the traditional
ranking was broken? The following is a summary of the changes in public library’s financial
allocation in Central and Western China in the past ten years, from which we may see the whole
picture (see Table 5).

Table 5. Comparison of financial allocation between the Central and Western public libraries from 2005 to 2015
Region 2005 2010 2011 2015
Financial allocation (ten thous- Central 52,900/20.81 122,625/22.44 154,456/22.30 278,817/21.95
and)/national total (%) West 45,086/17.74 110,987/20.32 155,105/22.48 298,954/23.53
Proportion of financial allocation Central 0.072 0.055 0.054 0.065
in total expenditure (%) West 0.071 0.052 0.057 0.069

It was in 2011 that the West surpassed the Central region in terms of the public library
funding and the proportion of financial allocation in total expenditure, which corresponds with
the timing of changes of other major indicators of public libraries’ development. As is verified
by Table 5, insufficient input of governments who are responsible for construction of public
libraries is one significant reason for Central lowland. Meanwhile, Table 5 suggests that the
phenomenon of “Central lowland” is a new phenomenon and problem coming into being after