Page 8 - Journal of Library Science in China 2020 Vol.46

RAO Quan / Review and outlook on the problems of library transformation 007

above the county level, with the increase of 230 million and 39% than that in 2015; and more than
177,000 events were held, increasing by 62,000 and 54% of that in 2015 .
〇a ①

1.1 Great breakthrough in library legislation

During the 13th Five-Year Plan period, the legislation of public libraries witnessed a great
breakthrough. The Public Cultural Service Guarantee Law of the People’s Republic of China
was introduced in 2016. The Public Library Law of the People’s Republic of China, which is
the first law to specialize in the library since the PRC was founded, was issued in 2017. The
former is the basic law of public cultural undertakings which lists requirements for all public
cultural services including public libraries, while the latter makes up for the gap in national
legislation of librarianship since the PRC was founded. The Public Library Law of the People’s
Republic of China clarifies provisions of public libraries’ facility construction, mode of operation,
service delivery, management system and safeguard mechanism, which establishes the basic
legal framework of future development of public libraries. The laws guarantee legally the future
development of public libraries and equitable access to library services. Meanwhile, the laws
make new requests for public libraries’ development, such as accepting deposit of publications
in provincial public libraries, collecting and preserving local documents and providing services,
annual reporting and its release at regular intervals. The Legislative Affairs Office of the State
Council made The Nationwide Reading Promotion Regulations (draft for comment), which is
closely related to the library, open for comments in April 2017. The National Ancient Books
Preservation Plan—the first plan in ancient books preservation was released in July 2017, which
specified objectives and key tasks of ancient books preservation.
Additionally, standardization organizations such as the National Technical Committee for Library
Standardization, the China National Information Technology Standardization Network and the
National Technical Committee for Information Imaging further advanced library standardization in
major aspects including the construction of library service system, digitalization construction and
service, service for people with special needs, library performance evaluation and preservation and
conservation of resources. As national and professional standards such as Specifications of Public
Libraries, Evaluation Indicators of Public Libraries, and Specifications of Library Reference
Service were released and put into practice successively, the library standardization system
develops to be more established.
At the local level, Tianjin, Hubei Province, Zhejiang Province, Shanxi Province and so on also
introduced public cultural service guarantee regulations. The Regulations of Public Libraries
in Guizhou Province asked for opinions. The Regulations of Public Libraries in Dongguan was
issued. Some provinces and cities such as Jilin, Guangdong, Fujian, Guizhou and Yantai released

① From The Overview of Essential Data of the Development of Public Libraries (2015, 2018), Research Institute of the National
Library of China.