Page 109 - Journal of Library Science in China 2020 Vol.46

108 Journal of Library Science in China, Vol.12, 2020

To sum up, the satisfaction and approval of rural residents for CBP are affected by both the
quality of products (services) on the supply side and the constraints of residents’ cultural capital
factors (embodied in consumption preferences). Thus, they are subject to both supply and
consumption side effects. Therefore, simply expanding the scale (e.g., increasing input) and service
quality (e.g., improving the level of programs) of the projects can have some effect on improving
the performance of CBP. However, it is unlikely to improve the projects substantially. In addition,
the performance enhancement of CBP is constrained by rural residents’ respective cultural capital
(socio-demographic characteristics). In contrast, the accumulation of cultural capital of rural
residents is a long-term process that is not significantly affected by the status of the cultural supply
side.

4 General ideas and policy paths for reforming and optimizing CBP

4.1 Based on the characteristics of “shallowness” and “weak participation” of cultural
projects, we establish the general idea of collaborative reform on both supply and demand
sides

The “shallowness” of rural grassroots public cultural service supply refers to the fact that the
business model of the public cultural sector fails to meet the actual demands of the residents.
However, the sector is still self-running with continuous resources input from higher authorities,
forming an isolated “loop” within the system. The problem was verified by an at-station survey
of Wuhan University’s “Culture Frontline” research group. The research team organized two
investigations at cultural stations in 2012 and 2016 (62 stations in 2012 and 53 stations in 2016),
and all volunteering researchers entered cultural stations for 30 days of observation. Combining
financial statistics and research data, we found that the national financial investment in cultural
stations had continued to grow, with the average fund allocation for cultural stations nationwide
〇a ①
increasing from 159,800 yuan in 2012 to 225,900 yuan in 2016 . Contrary to expectation, the
number of visitors who participated in cultural activities in the stations was decreasing. The
average daily visits to the stations decreased from 22 in 2012 to 15 in 2016. Moreover, the number
of cultural stations with average daily visits of more than 50 people accounted for 14.5% of the
total number of cultural stations researched in 2012, decreased to 7.5% in 2016. LI Jing’s survey on
the construction and use of CBP in Inner Mongolia (J. LI, 2015) and RONG Suyun’s research on
public cultural services in Hebei Province (RONG, 2016) also found that there was a coexistence
of insufficient, inefficient supply of public cultural services and insufficient, low-level demand for
public cultural services. The above studies all reflected the “shallowness” of CBP.
At the present stage, “weak participation” in rural cultural projects is characterized by low

① The data were calculated based on the China Cultural and Cultural Heritage Statistical Yearbook of 2013 and 2017.