Page 83 - JOURNAL OF LIBRARY SCIENCE IN CHINA 2018 Vol. 43

QIU Guanhua / The construction of central and branch libraries in China since the 21st century 083

Cultural Service System that, the construction of central and branch libraries at the county level
should be promoted. Five ministries, including the Ministry of Culture, have jointly issued
Guidance on Promoting the County Central-branch Cultural Center System and Central-branch
Library System Development Guidance, which foresees that the building of central and branch
libraries will enter a new phase of development, with the government’s leading role as a common
practice.
Under new conditions and with new technologies, we can learn the lessons by reviewing the
process of building central and branch libraries, during which we have gone through several
failures in the development of grassroots libraries. This will help us solve the major issues we
encounter in this process. Such issues involve how to build central and branch libraries and what
kind of libraries should be built, in order to realize the comprehensive coverage of facilities and
make library service equitably available, professional and standardized; only with the enhanced
effectiveness of services can public libraries to fulfill their missions better. Considering that this
issue is very comprehensive, the author simply puts forward a few points for reflection in this
paper.

2.1 Adapting to the local conditions and abiding by objective laws

Due to the vast territory of China, there are large gaps in the economic and social development,
which is the same case as in the development of public libraries. This also explains why the
building of central and branch libraries were mainly carried out in the East and the modes of
buidling varied in different places in the past few decades. Although the central and branch
libraries were constructed under the guidance of the demonstration areas and the governments,
the problem of avoiding institutional barriers still exists when it comes to system design. To solve
this problem, we need to strike a balance between considering the actual situations, according with
local conditions and corresponding with the objective laws of main and branch libraries.
Meanwhile, the idea of “building central and branch libraries in line with the local conditions” is
proposed in the Guidance. It is also required that under the main-branch system of county libraries,
the public reading resources within the county should be reorganized. This means that led by the
main libraries, literature resources should be purchased, catalogued, delivered, Borrow Anywhere,
Return Anywhere (BARA) service, while the personnel training should be unified as well. For
some advanced places, the central libraries can implement centralized management or play a
part in managing the personnel and properties of the branch libraries. This seems to be somehow
uncertain, but in fact, this is the macroscopic design and principle guidance for the construction
of central and branch libraries at national level, which has taken the national conditions into
consideration. When it comes to a specific area, the systems and plans concerning building central
and branch libraries should be adopted and adjusted according to its own situations. The central
and branch libraries constructed not in line with laws can barely work economically and efficiently,