Page 27 - Journal of Library Science in China, Vol.47, 2021

026
026 Journal of Library Science in China, Vol.13, 2021

essential attributes of the library should be collection and utilization of books and documents, or
[21]
the gathering and delivery of knowledge and information” . The word “delivery” is essentially
dissemination.
In the 1980s, there was a trend of thought in library science which put emphasis on the outward
extension of library science in order to obtain a more favorable position and greater social
influence. The “theory of information resource” and “theory of knowledge exchange” were the
products of information age and knowledge age respectively, which reflected that library science
kept pace with the times and tried to develop the sociality and timeliness of the library. In this
trend of thought, the two communication concepts of “knowledge communication” and “document
communication” came into being, which were influenced by communication studies, and learned
from the social communication of J. H. Shera (United States) and the scientific communication of A.
I. Mikhail (Soviet Union) in the 1970s. In 1985, MI Hao and HUANG Chunyuan put forward the
theory of knowledge communication, focusing on the phenomenon of human knowledge exchange
and regarding the library as a social entity to realize knowledge communication [22] , which had
gone beyond the scope of books—the traditional object of library science. In Introduction to
Document Communication published in 1986, ZHOU Wenjun recognized the library’s nature of
document communication. At the same time, he also put it that “document communication is the
common bedrock of the practice of publishing, libraries, archives, informatics, bibliography and
so on; it is also the common research object of disciplines such as libraries, archives, informatics
and bibliography” [23] . ZHOU Wenjun attempted to construct a first-level subject above library
science—document communication, which centered on dissemination, emphasized the extension
of library science, and also stuck to the “book-centered orientation”.
The construction of theoretical library science based on the thoughts of book culture and
dissemination was the outstanding contribution made by the second generation of modern
Chinese librarians on the basis of the first generation. Through the efforts of the third generation
of librarians, the basic theories of library science, library philosophy, library science history and
methodology with international vision and Chinese characteristics were established, forming the
theoretical library science system.
It is worth noting that after the 1990s, the thinking of outward extension constantly subverted
the basic theoretical framework of traditional library science, and the voice calling for expanding
library work and the discipline was increasingly strong. The dissatisfaction with the name of
“library science” directly led to enthusiasm of renaming of library science education. This outward
extension thinking was worth recommending. However, library science, which was divorced from
books and the essence of the library and absorbed social buzzwords, made the library domain
extend blindly and lose its border. Once the original aspiration and excellent traditions were
abandoned, library science was in danger of being marginalized.