Page 101 - JOURNAL OF LIBRARY SCIENCE IN CHINA 2018 Vol. 44

100 Journal of Library Science in China, Vol.10, 2018

3.1 Coordinating all stakeholders, reshaping the responsibilities scope of the government,
strengthening the library’s independent legal status, expanding the authority scope for the
board of trustees

1) Strengthening the administrative organizational leadership, clarifying the responsibilities scope
for each stakeholder, authorizing more rights for the board of trustees
The experiences of previous pilots mean that the corporate governance of public libraries
invariably requires great attention and should solve the pre-existing mechanism problems from
the local Party committees and governments. On the one hand, the corporate governance of
public libraries should be one of the key tasks for the reform of local public institutions with
the personal intervention of the chief leaders of authorities, and the concrete instruction for the
leader in charge of related field. The reform should set up the top design by studying and enacting
the local “Implementation Plan on the Reform of the Corporate Governance Structure of Public
Cultural Institutions”, handle the relationship between the government superior departments
and the board of trustees, clarify the decision-making and supervision status of the board of
trustees, authorize more rights for the board of trustees within current policy framework, expand
the decision-making and supervision scope for the board of trustees, including the financial
allocation of the budget about the public libraries, the librarian’s appointment and supervision
assessment, the deliberation on the development plan and the major activities. On the other hand,
the government superior departments should support the board of trustees to perform functions and
participate in the whole governance process by establishing the first board of trustees, appointing
the trustees, nominating president and so on. Meanwhile, the reform should learn from the different
voting right in corporate governance of the enterprises, which means that the decision from the
board of trustees must be agreed by the certain trustee, or the certain trustee has the “veto” power.
To be specific, local governments should authorize the superior department with the “veto” power
over issues contrary to the national and local policies and regulations, contrary to the national rules
about the finance, project construction and so on, contrary to the right of selecting and appointing
cadres and personnel management. These measures will ensure the governance of public libraries
to follow the guiding ideology and general policies, clarify the border of the “veto” power, reflect
the effective supervision and administration of the public libraries and their governance by the
government.
2) Establishing a joint conference system, coordinating all the stakeholders, extending the
independent legal status for public libraries
The contradiction between the cultural system reform and the pre-existing management system
is mainly reflected in the complexity of the benefit relationship, in other words, each part of the
relationship could have a far-reaching effect. Therefore, we should go beyond the limitations of
the Party-government joint conference system of the library management based on experience,
and ensure the continuous motivation and enthusiasm about the reform of local government. For