Page 54 - Journal of Library Science in China, Vol.45, 2019

KE Ping & ZOU Jinhui / Library transformation in the post-knowledge service era 053

ubiquity as its external characteristic and people-oriented sustainable development as its inherent
characteristic. Chu Jingli and Duan Meizhen (2018) believe that the smart library is the result of
interaction and integration of intelligent technology, smart librarians and library management.
Driven by the Internet of things and artificial intelligence technology, the library will inevitably
move from physical library and digital library to smart library.
Since the primary goal of the library in the pre-knowledge service era—digital library and
hybrid library has come true, the library community generally pays attention to the ultimate goal
of the library transformation. By virtue of the theory and practice of pre-knowledge service era,
the transformation of “knowledge center hypothesis” is expected to be realized, while the “smart
library hypothesis” is still under the theoretical discussion at present. Smart service has emerged,
such as smart retrieval service, smart recommendation service, and privacy protection service
(G. Zeng, Ming, & Deng, 2018). It is still uncertain whether the goal of the smart library can be
achieved or whether it is the ultimate goal of the transformation.

4 Conclusion

The library transformation is systems engineering. The pre-knowledge service era has provided
a buffer period and laid the foundation and conditions for the library transformation. In the
post-knowledge service era, the transformation is imperative, not only because of the external
environment (especially the industry environment), but also because of the internal and external
transformation driving forces of the system. The transformation of the library in the post-
knowledge service era needs to solve internal and external problems of principles, and also the
problems of concepts, key elements and path.
Concepts are the basis and premise of the library transformation. If there is any deviation in
cognition of concepts, it is difficult to establish a scientific transformation system, which leads
to the path error. As aforementioned, in addition to the concept of knowledge, what are more
important in the post-knowledge service era are concepts of data and wisdom. Rooted in the
background of big data, the concept of knowledge centers on data, establishes the conceptual
framework of from data to information knowledge and wisdom, and develops library data services
including data open access, data management, data administration, etc. Rooted in the background
of artificial intelligence, concepts of data and wisdom target at wisdom, establish the conceptual
framework of the connection between the library and society, librarianship and users, and develop
the smart library service including smart learning services, smart scientific research services,
smart community services, and smart leisure services, etc. Therefore, it is necessary to break
through outdated concepts of the traditional library, strengthen theoretical research, promotion of
librarianship and social publicity, and eliminate various obstacles in the transformation, especially
the obstacles of concepts.
Space, resources, service and management are the four key elements of the library transformation,