Page 124 - Journal of Library Science in China 2020 Vol.46

Shelia X. WEI, Ronda J. ZHANG, Howell Y. WANG, CAO CONG & Fred Y. YE / 123
Rankings never really quantify contributions: A quantitative and qualitative study on universities and their libraries

2.2 University libraries as a key research supporting service

Table 5 shows reference data of ten world-renowned university libraries, with five domestic and
five foreign ones together. We process the data described above into a quantitatively comparable
form. Three quantitative indicators are selected, all of which are critical indicators in library
statistics.

Table 5. Selected statistical data of top ten famous university libraries
Total collections Overall expenditures
University libraries Staff number
(volumes) (converted to 2013-2014 CNY¥)
Harvard 19,848,652 759,744,523 ($123,135,255) 794
Yale 13,547,882 540,402,597 ($87,585,510) 577
UC-Berkeley 12,548,223 386,607,196 ($62,659,189) 500

Princeton 8,663,694 316,350,467 ($51,272,361) 369
Columbia 13,119,661 409,887,896 ($66,432,398) 589
Peking 7,500,000* 78,655,845 168

Tsinghua 4,788,000 62,921,077 138
Fudan 5,100,000* 96,681,390 184
Sun Yat-Sen 6,320,000 72,226,039 253

Zhejiang 5,743,000 82,697,228 178
* The calculated values.

Obviously, the five international top university libraries show higher statistical features than the
five domestic ones, which means that the former has a higher investment than the latter, leading
to stronger supporting to university research and education. In fact, the lack of funds and staff are
two long-standing problems (CHENG, & J. LIU, 2020). According to ARL statistics, 2013-2014
and 2013 and 2014 reports of Tsinghua University Library (http://lib.tsinghua.edu.cn/gk/gzzc.htm),
volumes in Yale University was 13,547,882, while volumes in Tsinghua University was about
4,788,000. Therefore, in library supporting for research and services, Yale University had better
condition than Tsinghua University. Generally, better library means better research supporting and
better services to students and faculty, so that there exist typical differences between domestic top
university libraries and foreign top university libraries.

2.3 Qualitative contributions determined greatness

The decisive factor for a university to become a top one lies not only in its ranking, scale or