Page 146 - JOURNAL OF LIBRARY SCIENCE IN CHINA 2018 Vol. 44

CHEN Geng & BAI Haohui / Inspection and reflection on the free open policy of public cultural venues in China: Centered on the public libraries 145

proposes that the financial investment of public libraries should be guaranteed by law from the
perspective of legal protection.
These analyses and countermeasures about the shortage of free admission funds and the guarantee
mechanism of public cultural venues such as public libraries have important theoretical and
practical guiding significance for perfecting and optimizing the free admission financial guarantee
mechanism. However, the existing research is mainly based on qualitative methods, lacking
scientific theoretical support. The argumentation is insufficient, meanwhile some countermeasures
and suggestions lack practical feasibility. In the key period of the new era for building a modern
public cultural service system and promoting the equalization of basic public cultural services, the
free admission policy, especially its financial guarantee problem, still has theoretical needs and
realistic necessity to be considered and analyzed continually. Taking the free admission of public
libraries for example, this paper intends to summarize the free admission situation and effectiveness
of public libraries combining official data and research data, and deeply analyze the problems
and causes of the current free admission financial guarantee mechanism, in order to propose the
corresponding response and strategy based on the relevant theories like the policy process theory.

1 Theoretical basis: Based on the perspective of cultural rights protection
and policy adjustment

Throughout the world, the “government reengineering” movement along with “new public
management” evolved into the “service-oriented government” construction process triggered by
“new public services” (Chen, 2010). Free admission has become a common practice in public
cultural venues in many countries. Although the design concepts and operating modes of public
cultural systems in different countries are different, the design concepts of free admission in most
countries are based on theory of civic cultural rights. In addition, the free admission policy based
on the theory of civic cultural rights is nested in the process of public policy, which is based on the
theory of policy process.

1.1 Cultural rights theory

In 1966, The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights adopted by the 21st
United Nations General Assembly established the legality of cultural rights under the framework
of human rights theory. Pakuski, Nick Stevenson, Brian Turner and Maurice Ritchie introduced
cultural rights into the theory of cultural citizenship and discussed the “cultural dimension” of
citizenship through cultural rights (Xia, 2014), thus the cultural rights theory was developed
further. At present, the connotation of civic cultural rights has formed a relatively common
consensus, that is, to enjoy cultural achievements, participate in cultural events, carry out cultural
creation, and protect cultural achievements.