Page 85 - JOURNAL OF LIBRARY SCIENCE IN CHINA 2018 Vol. 43

QIU Guanhua / The construction of central and branch libraries in China since the 21st century 085

simply put them under the single administration of the county libraries and implement centralized
management. As long as the suggestion is accepted and consensus is reached, this goal is not
difficult to achieve by document issuance by the county government, or negotiation and agreement
between county and town. According to the experience and lessons, the closer the central and
branch libraries are the more efficient and effective their service will be. This is also why Suzhou
Library insists that the branch libraries’ staff must be appointed and assigned by the central library.
Centralized management is the inherent law of main and branch libraries. The economic,
efficient and sustainable development of the branch libraries is directly in the charge of the main
libraries, which has been well acknowledged within the library sector. Bao’an and Nanshan have
carried out reconstruction of branch libraries directly affiliated to their main libraries and achieved
success; Futian also accomplished the reconstruction of 8 community branch libraries in 2015,
making them under the direct administration of the main district library; as for Luohu, the central
library directly appointed and assigned staff from the very beginning of reconstructing its 9 branch
libraries. After Xiamen established its demonstration area, the newly built branches are all directly
affiliated to the central library. Changsha has chosen one library out of 60 branches to implement
centralized management, and it is found that it is the most efficient among all the branches with
31,000 readers received and 41,025 books loaned, which are 3,56 times and 4,46 times than the
average of the other 59 branches (see Table 1).

Table 1. Efficiency comparisons between branches of centralized and loose management
Number of Readership Readership Number of Book loans
Place Year
branches in total per branch book loans per branch
Bao’an, Shenzhen 6 374,400 62,400 56,300 9,400 2015
Nanshan, Shezhen 8 682,200 85,300 371,200 66,400 2015
Changsha 1 31,000 31,000 41,000 41,000 2015
Yuzhong, Chongqing 6 168,000 28,000 2,200 3,700 2016
Jiaxing 12 1,860,800 155,100 1,082,700 90,200 2016
Xiamen 16 967,000 60,400 627,200 39,200 2015
Suzhou 69 5,076,400 73,600 2,338,500 33,900 2016
Some loose-type community 30 333,000 11,100 10,700 360 2015
branch libraries
（Statistics collected from the tables provided by related libraries）

For those central and branch libraries that implement centralized management, they are more
efficient than those managed loosely, because their internal relations are closer, resource allocation
is optimized, and their service is professional and standard. However, it is really necessary to put
forward measures in line with the local conditions. When an area considers building main and
branch libraries, the branch libraries to be brought into the central-branch system are standard
libraries (e.g. town libraries, village libraries, or even district libraries), and they are professionally