Page 87 - JOURNAL OF LIBRARY SCIENCE IN CHINA 2018 Vol. 43

QIU Guanhua / The construction of central and branch libraries in China since the 21st century 087

these three indexes are basically 12 times. Given that the administrative level of Shanghai’s county
libraries is prefecture level, and those in the Pudong New Area are even at deputy-provincial
level, we also make comparisons between Jiangsu and Liaoning. It is found that the gaps between
Jiangsu and Liaoning in financial allocation, readership, and book loans are 2.14 times, 4.09 times,
and 4.18 times. Such imbalance implies that, the county libraries in many places are short of
resources and weak in professionalism. Since their service capabilities are far from satisfactory, the
service efficiency of many county libraries cannot even compete with those community branches
under the centralized management of the central-branch system. Therefore, many county libraries
are unable to take the responsibilities as central libraries at county level, and they themselves are
even facing the possibility of being marginalized in the local areas.

Table 2. Average statistics of county libraries in 2015
Number of country Financial support per Readership per Book loans per
Area
libraries library library library
West 1050 1,159,500 55,500 44,900
Middle 997 1,050,100 64,300 55,100
East 687 4,129,500 291,200 220,700
Shanghai 23 19,245,500 1,021,500 913,600
Jiangsu 97 3,385,200 337,200 309,000
Niaoling 106 1,560,000 82,400 74,000
(Data source: An Outline of the Basic Statistics about China’s Public Library Development, issued by the Research Institute
of National Library of China, April 2016)

The Guidance exactly highlights the important role of the county libraries, which form a
connecting link between the libraries at the upper and the lower levels. It is expected that, by
promoting the construction of central and branch libraries at the county level, making them bigger
and stronger. On the other hand, we cannot merely depend on the government’s promotion, and
the county libraries should make a difference by themselves as well. They should establish their
own service philosophies, make service policies, draw professional designs, carry out service
innovation, and do their best to provide basic service and promote reading, so as to attract the
attention of society and attain more resources. Only when they make themselves better and
stronger in the first place can they manage to take responsibilities as main libraries in the main-
branch library construction at county level.
2) Only when the rural areas are covered can it be generally equal in a real sense. China is a big
agricultural country, and the issues concerning agriculture, rural areas and farmers are essential to
the overall situation of economic development and social stability, but in fact, normal public library
service has been a blank in the rural areas. The Party and the Government are highly concerned
about and lay strong emphasis on the public library service in the rural areas, and several large-
scale movements of building grassroots libraries have been launched, which all failed due to many