Page 65 - 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 065

in Higher Education Institutions set by the Ministry of Education, respectively in 1985, 1992,
2003, and 2009. The main idea was that appropriate adjustments should be made to the core
courses under stable circumstances. The core courses selected in 2009 were Fundamentals of
Library Science, Information Resources Construction, Information and Knowledge Organization,
Information Services, and Information Retrieval. The core courses recommended included Digital
Library, Library Management, Bibliography, and Research Methodology of Library Science. Apart
from core courses, the teaching units generally reduced the ratio of traditional courses and opened
new courses. In 1980s, there were newly-added courses on information science, management
science, library automation, and bibliometrics; while in 1990s, the newly opened courses were
related to modern information technologies, such as computer, Internet and digital library.
The second is the change of the content of theoretical courses. The subject “basic theories of
Library Science” can be taken as a good example. In the late 1970s and the early 1980s, the heavy
emphasis on ideology was eradicated from the teaching materials and content. Afterwards, people
attempted to develop the useful part and discard the harmful content of empirical Library Science,
and gradually established “a new Library Science with modern scientific spirit as the fundamental
guidance” (Fan, 2017). This process is clearly reflected in the teaching materials on the basic
theories of Library Science, which have been adopted from the late 1980s till present.
The third is the change of practice teaching. Emphasizing the cultivation of students’ practical
ability has been the tradition of LSE, but its contents and forms should change in accordance with
the given times. In the past two decades, the teaching units have set up experimental courses and
established a system of experimental teaching, with various modules including virtual library,
network classroom, open laboratory, document resource management, and multimedia teaching.
Students can also know about the real working environment of library service by doing internships,
which helps them quickly adapt to the practical work in the library after graduation.

4.2.4 The influence on the developments trends of LSE
Over three decades of reform and opening-up witnessed tremendous changes in the Chinese
society, among which two changes most directly influenced the trend of LSE, namely the
transformation to the market economy, and the rapid development of social informatization. The
influence brought by the former was that students should seek jobs on their own instead of being
assigned posts by the state after graduation. Since library professions were not considered decent
jobs at that time, it was unlikely that Library Science would be the priority when students chose
majors. This resulted in the failure in enrolling students majoring in Library Science. The latter
change demanded that LSE should transform its mode of talent cultivation and fit into the trend of
social informatization. With the great impact of these two trends, LSE was confronted with serious
challenges.
To face up to such challenges, the educational institutions of Library Science started two
waves of renaming respectively in the 1980s and the 1990s. In the first wave, the Library Science