Page 18 - Journal of Library Science in China, Vol.45, 2019

RAO Quan / The experience and transformation of Chinese librarianship 017

and network information is readily available, the core value of libraries still lies in its long-term
preservation and constant development of civilized memory resources. This means that we must re-
examine the library’s collection development strategy, continuously expand the library’s collection
and preservation scope for human civilization and memory in line with the changes in the pattern
of human civilization development and inheritance. Through the establishment of a three-
dimensional resource system, the collection of libraries can present the diversity of civilization, the
changes in the development of civilization and the characteristics of the times.
Since the beginning of the 21st century, the Chinese library community, along with its foreign
counterparts, has been exploring the collection and preservation of various emerging resources
and has achieved fruitful results. The NLC, in cooperation with provincial and municipal public
libraries nationwide, started the archiving of web resources in 2003. It has so far collected and
saved all government websites, as well as more than 300 resources of special subjects, such as
the Beijing Olympics. In April 2019, the Internet Information Strategic Preservation Project was
launched, and the first pilot base was established on the Internet content service platform, Sina.
com. Blogs and microblog information reflecting the public’s personal internet life was taken
as important part of social memory recorded in the national document information preservation
system.The Capital Library, Shanghai Library, Changchun Library, and the NLC have organized
and implemented several cultural memory projects, using major historical events and important
historical figures as clues to collect and preserve the living memories of the country, collectives,
and individuals. Moreover, several libraries has conducted tentative collection, storage, and
management of monitoring, survey, statistics, and research data of various types.
In the future, the library community should unite to effectively expand the dimension of human
civilization memories preserved by the library collection system. First, a close strategic cooperation
tie with the Internet content platform should be established to build a hierarchical and distributed
national Internet information resource collection and preservation system. In so doing, libraries
can preserve the network resources that record the evolution of the times and social changes
completely and systematically. Second, efforts should be made to enhance the overall planning
and deployment of oral history collection and preservation at the national level. Living memory
resources are to be collected in terms of major events, important figures, and featured cultures.
Accordingly, a relatively complete set of standards and specifications should be formulated.
Through large-scale collection and preservation, oral histories can be integrated into the existing
collection system, and gradually develop an organic connection with other historical documents.
In such a case, the mutual verification and complementation of historical resources can present
the development of civilization in three dimensions. Third, libraries should adapt themselves to
the new changes in innovation and entrepreneurship, scientific research and academic exchanges
and incorporate various types of public data, scientific data and other resources into the library
collection system. Through the building of an effective connection with the knowledge content
of existing collection resources, libraries are able to enhance their capabilities in using collection