Page 67 - 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 067

5 Reflection on the benign interaction between LSE and society

The centenary history of China’s LSE development shows that the development of LSE is
inevitably affected and limited by the social environment, and conversely, LSE also influences
social development in its own way. Only when LSE and society interacts with each other in
a benign manner can society develops harmoniously. In the author’s opinion, such positive
interaction usually depends on the unities in the following aspects.

5.1 The unity between reliance and independence of LSE

Undoubtedly, LSE relies on society, whose sub-systems provide it with development conditions,
and meanwhile, LSE itself should adapt to the requirements for social development. However,
as an undertaking that disseminates special knowledge and cultivates professional talents, LSE
has its own law of development and the working mechanism corresponding with this law, and
this is where LSE’s reliance lies. LSE’s reliance and independence are interdependent on each
other. Reliance determines that LSE needs to acquire resources for development from society,
communicate information with society, and keep adjusting development goals. Independence is
the basis of legitimacy for LES’s existence (Q.S. Zhang, 1999). Reliance and independence make
up the relationship of dialectical unity and coexistence. The practical significance of discussing
the problem lies in that, LSE should realize the fact that only when it meets the demand for
talents in social development and accordingly adjusts its own goal can it get on the right track
of development. Nonetheless, such “adjustment” should not be blind accommodation. In the
previous years, some educational institutions of Library Science made drastic adjustment to their
curriculum so as to escape from the plight. They opened courses that catered to the preferences and
needs in the job market, and thus finance, international trade, accounting, and advertising became
courses for Library Science majors, while the core courses such as information organization and
information description were then marginalized. As a result, Library Science majors have failed
to master the core knowledge of Library Science, and only known about a few terms of “other
disciplines”, which were not helpful at all. This is a deviated understanding about LSE’s reliance
and independence, not only failing to improve the students’ occupational competitiveness, but also
doing harm to the development of LSE.

5.2 The unity between instrumental rationality and value rationality of LSE

The German ideologist Max Weber has divided human rationality into instrumental rationality
and value rationality. The former refers to the actions that take calculations and expectations as
“conditions” or “means” for the attainment of the actor’s own utilitarian pursuits. Afterwards,
the German philosopher Horkheimer and some others further developed Weber’s thoughts, using