Page 148 - 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 147

heuristic”, but a theory containing phased methods (He & Wan, 2006).
At the end of the 20th century, James E. Anderson’s “policy process stage theory” was called the
“Text Progress” theory. He divided the functional activities of the policy process into the formation
of problems, the formulation of policy plans, the adoption of policy options, the implementation
of policies and the evaluation of policies (Anderson, 1990). Although the subsequent development
of policy process theory frameworks has greatly enriched the policy process theory, such as multi-
analytical framework of policy process, institutional rational choice framework, discontinuity-
balance theory, support alliance framework, etc., these theories are still mainly based on the “stage
theory”. Especially for a single policy, the policy process still follows the basic process of “policy
planning, policy implementation, policy outcomes, policy evaluation”. This constitutes the basic
theoretical framework of this paper.
Combined with the free admission of public cultural venues in various countries, when the
policy is officially adopted and implemented, evaluation and feedback will be generated, then
adjustments and changes will come behind. For example, after the policy evaluation in France,
the free admission date was increased and the audience was expanded. The United States also
expanded the scope of free admission services after conducting policy evaluations. It can be seen
that the use of policy process theory to inspect, adjust and optimize the free admission policy has
both theoretical and practical operability.

2 Analysis of the progress in practice of public libraries’ free admission

Under the protection of central and local finances, free admission has become the norm of public
library services. As of 2017, more than 3,100 public libraries across the country have been
basically free admission. After free admission, the public library showed a significant increase in
public cultural service supply and number of service people compared with before, reflecting the
effectiveness of the free admission policy.
According to The Chinese Cultural Relics Statistical Yearbook (2006-2017), we selected the
data for six years before and after the free admission for comparative analysis (see Table 1), thus
we found that the average annual growth rate of most major indicators after free admission is
faster than before. The annual average increase rate in the number of total circulation, borrowers,
borrowing books, events (including lectures, training courses, exhibitions) and participants was
11.6%, 10.2%, 13.98%, 15.46%, 19.44%, which are much higher than the average annual growth
rate of 7.06%, 5.19%, 5.42%, -24.59%, 1.4% for the first six years before the free admission.
Furthermore, the two-year growth of the free admission implementation showed obvious policy
effects. In 2011 and 2012, the increase in total collection was 12.95%, 13.10%; the increase in total
circulation was 16.23%, 13.86%; the increase in the number of borrowers was 9.92%, 13.62%;
the increase in the number of borrowing books was 7.81%, 16.66%; the increase in the number
of events was 13.58%, 19.98%; the increase in the number of participants was 7.18%, 39.85%.