Page 59 - JOURNAL OF LIBRARY SCIENCE IN CHINA 2018 Vol. 43

XIAO Ximing / The interaction between Library Science Education and the society in China over the past century 059

becoming its academy for diploma courses in Library Science. Library Science was separated from
the College of Liberal Arts in August 1949, and its school system changed several times. In 1956,
with the approval of the Ministry of Education, Peking University and Wuhan University changed
the diploma courses in Library Science into the four-year undergraduate program, and officially
founded their own departments of Library Science. The undergraduate education in Library
Science was established in these two key comprehensive universities that enjoyed great reputation
in China, and undoubtedly, this system reform was rather favorable for the development of LSE.
In the next two decades, LSE at Peking University and Wuhan University played a dominant role
in China. Though in 1950s, some other universities and colleges also opened diploma courses in
Library Science, including the Teachers’ College at Southwest University, University of Science
and Technology of China, and Northeast Normal University, the courses were suspended soon.
In the 1950s and 1960s, the library undertakings were developing rapidly in China, with urgent
demands for a large number of professionals. However, the talents cultivated by the regular higher
education failed to meet such needs, thus leading to the flourishing of various forms of continuing
education in Library Science. Taking correspondence education as an example, the departments
of Library Science at Peking University and Wuhan University offered correspondence courses
in Library Science respectively in 1956 and 1960. By 1965, these two universities had set up
correspondence stations in 30 provinces nationwide, with 1,253 students enrolled in total (Library
Society of China, 2014). This marked the establishment of regular continuing education in Library
Science in China.

3.1.2 Influence on the thoughts of LSE
Ever since 1949, LSE in China had completely broken away from the American mode, and
shifted to the Soviet mode in a comprehensive manner. The Soviet mode of higher education was
featured by specialized education, which was to divide majors and professions in a specialized
and meticulous manner, even “setting schools, departments and majors according to industrial
sectors, industries and products” (Dai, 2007, p124). Such an educational mode resulted in the
limited knowledge scope and dissatisfactory overall quality of students. Influenced by the Soviet
mode, China’s LSE also abandoned its tradition of liberal education, and carried out specialized
education according to disciplines, leading to the over-divided courses and repetitive content.
Overemphasizing theories and neglecting application of knowledge constituted another feature of
the Soviet-mode LSE. In this mode, focus was laid on the improvement of students’ basic theories,
whereas the teaching of working knowledge was generally overlooked. Under such influence,
China’s LSE in this period paid attention to the organization and teaching of basic theories
regarding Library Science, especially endeavoring to sort out the theoretical problems in terms
of the research subjects, systems and structures, disciplinary features, and research methods of
Library Science, which had also triggered several debates within the academic circle (Lin, 2015).
The most negative influence by the Soviet thoughts of LSE is the over-politicization and pan-