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

budgetary resources are fully guaranteed. The law prescribes the government’s responsibilities in
guaranteeing staff in public libraries from two aspects. Firstly, the law puts forward the principles
of determining the number of staff. The number of staff should be determined by five factors,
namely, the library service, the library scale and size, the scope of services, and the served
population. At present, indicators of the number of public library staff with strong restriction
are lacking. The only one recommended is the Public Library Service Standards (GB/T 28220-
2011), which prescribes that one staff is required for every 10,000 to 25,000 population (General
Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine of the People’s Republic of
China, Standardization Administration of China, 2012). Secondly, the proficiency of staff is
required. According to international convention, modern library should be based on the system
of professional posts (The Library Society of China, 2003). The PLL prescribes that the librarian
of public libraries should have educational and managerial qualifications as well as professional
knowledge; and staff should have professional knowledge and skills. The PLL also makes clears
that professionals of public libraries can apply for professional and technical titles according to
relevant regulations. The PLL has made progress in reinforcing staff’s professional abilities.

5 Innovating public libraries’ administrative systems

It is an important task of establishing a modern public cultural service system to innovate public
libraries’ administrative systems. The Party Central Committee and the State Council demand
that cultural legalization should be linked up with major policies in cultural administrative system
reforms and that all the important reforms should have legal basis. Based on actual conditions of
public library reforms in China, the PLL legalizes the central-branch system at the county level,
the corporate governance structure and the evaluation system.

5.1 Establishing the central-branch system at the county level

The regional central-branch system is an internationally conventional public library organization
system. Based on actual conditions in China, public libraries began to learn from other
countries and explore the central-branch system ten years ago. The Outline of National Cultural
Development Plan in the Period of 11th Five-Year released in September 2006 proposed for the
first time that libraries at the county (city) level could implement the central-branch system step by
step in which books were acquisitioned, cataloged and distributed, giving full play to the radiant
effect of the county library on reading rooms in the towns and villages (General Office of the CPC
Central Committee, General Office of the State Council, 2006). In 2015, the General Office of
the CPC Central Committee and General Office of the State Council released the Accelerating the
Construction of Modern Public Cultural Service System in which the cultural centers and libraries
at the county level were asked to advance the central-branch system to realize the integration