Page 66 - Journal of Library Science in China, Vol.45, 2019

YE Jiyuan / Eight major problems in the development of the librarianship in China 065

such a case, the library is not likely to perish. The tenets that “focus on users, and abide by general,
open, sharing and equitable principles” are distinctive characteristics of the library from other
institutions, as well as the major reason that it will not perish.
It is worth mentioning that services are sublime ideals and behaviors and reflect values of servers
in advanced culture. More services mean more values and contributions. In fact, each profession
involves direct or indirect services for others. Doctors provide services for patients, teachers
for students, leaders for the general public, and librarians for users, all of which are normal and
significant.
Other than basic tasks such as lending and reference services provided previously, the library
in the new era should upgrade its services, transitioning from “finding books for users and vice
versa” to “seeking knowledge for users and vice versa” and “making plans for users and vice
versa”. Plans here refer to solutions to problems, which is actually the highest-level intelligence
service. If experts of various disciplines can be gathered in the library or library staffs become
scholarly librarians through research, the library can also provide think tank services. Library
services targeted at different needs provide a wide range of services in levels and approaches.
Services are considered good as long as users get the sense of gain. In order to provide these
services, the library should improve its service capacity. It requires that new ideals should be
developed and implemented. In addition to service with smiles, librarians should be equipped with
knowledge and abilities to provide services of various levels. Enthusiastic posture and various
lectures as well as exhibitions will have little effect if service capacity is scarce and fail to be put
into practice.

5 How to improve the quality of library work

In recent decade, allocations, buildings, equipment and staff in the library have been greatly
enhanced with the rapid economic development in China. Viewed from external environment,
libraries in China seem to match those in the advanced countries. Nevertheless, the quality needs to
be elevated from the view of internal management. Before 1978, the library carried out relatively
standard management of books, but lacked standards in dealing with serial publications such as
journals. When the library began to set up standards, new development surged such as the library
computer management system, the Internet, and the digital full-text database. In such a case, the
library was quite passive. It did not have enough time to perfect its work. In consequence, even
some core work was outsourced or crowdsourced. While the library did not have time and energy
to emphasize the quality of library work in the rapid development period, then in the new era, it
could inevitably been put into the agenda to focus on connotative development and quality of work.
Firstly, to improve the quality of work requires consciousness for quality and the prime.
One significant reason that the library will not be replaced is “providing accurate and reliable
information”. Compared with online resources of varying qualities, information provided by the