Page 44 - Journal of Library Science in China, Vol.47, 2021

XIAO Ximing & SHEN Ling / The historical development and contemporary construction 043
of the framework of fundamental theory of library science with Chinese characteristics

[7]
and “applied library science” . All these categorizations are major explorations in the process of
indigenizing the disciplinary system of library science.
The 1920s and 1930s saw the emergence of Dewey’s pragmatism, Butler’s “theory on library and
society”, Ranganathan’s “five laws of library science”, which are of international influence in the
field of library science theories. The Chinese library community was also committed to building
a localized school of library science theory, the most prominent one of which being the proposal
of“Element Theory” on the research object of library science. In 1921, LIU Guojun first proposed
[8]
the three elements of “legal equipment, suitable librarians, and legitimate books” , and in the same
year DAI Zhiqian named six elements of “location, building, acquisition, classification, opening
hours, and open stacks” . In 1925, LIANG Qichao summarized two elements of “readers and
[9]
[2]
reading materials” , in 1929 TAO Shu put forward a three-element theory of “books, librarians,
[10]
and readers” , and in 1932, DU Dingyou came up with another version of three-element theory
consisting of “books, people, and laws” [11]7 . In 1934, LIU Guojun enriched his three-element theory
[12]
as four elements: namely, “books, personnel, equipment and methods” . The “Element Theory”
absorbs the ideas about the origin and diversity of all things in the world from ancient Eastern
and Western philosophy, and adopts a research method in the theory of modern Chinese academic
thought, which goes as “the whole is divided into various parts for research, and the research
[13]
of each part is again combined into a new entire object” . The “Element Theory” is therefore
considered to be the landmark achievement of the fundamental theoretical research of modern
Chinese library science. However, due to social environment limitations, library scientists of this
period failed to work beyond “descriptive research on library activities” .
[14]

1.2 Twists and turns in the development of the fundamental theory of library science
with Chinese characteristics (1949-1978)

After the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, there has been significant
improvement in the social conditions for librarianship. The period of 1949 to 1956 saw rapid
recovery and progress in the library sector, which laid a solid foundation of practice for library
science. Nevertheless, in this period, both the decision-makers and the library professionals
focused on the development of practical skills of library science. Additionally, due to humanities
and social sciences scholars’ slow adaptation to the changes in academic environment, the basic
theoretical research of library science in the seven years (1949-1956) were quite silent, achieving
almost nothing of value.
In 1956, the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee convened the National
Intellectuals Conference. ZHOU Enlai, the Prime Minister, made a Report on the Issues of
Intellectuals at the conference, and the CPC Central Committee called for “An Advancement in
Scientific Research”. In the same year, the National Conference on the Work of Libraries and the
National Conference on the Work of Libraries of Institutions of Higher Learning were successively