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

of librarianship, then the “professional spirit” discussed here mainly refers to the beliefs and
values held by librarians in the profession, which include professional ideals, professional
attitudes, professional responsibilities, professional skills, professional discipline, professional
conscience, and professional reputation. The professional spirit of the library should clearly reflect
in content the requirements for the librarian’s professional mission, professional responsibilities
and professional behaviors. In the form of expression, it should be imbued with the features of
the library’s professional activities and adapt to its nature, tasks, environment and conditions. In
terms of the scope of adjustment, internally, it must be able to forge solidarity, cultivate library
practitioners to establish a correct world view, outlook on life and sense of values, and externally, it
must establish a good professional image for the library community, so that the public could have a
correct understanding of the library profession. It is evident that the fundamental theory of library
science should focus on research in this regard.
(3) Professional codes of ethics for librarians
If the research of library professionalism mainly involves issues such as beliefs and values,
then library professional ethics and professional integrity often regulate librarians’ professional
behaviors in the form of codes, guidelines, regulations and other institutionalized forms. Although
there are some differences between professional ethics and professional integrity in terms of
concepts and objects of use, there is no substantial difference in function. They both concretize
the abstract professional spirit into operable clauses, so that they have certain normative and
restrictive functions. Such norms and constraints often involve many areas that are difficult for
the law to intervene, so professional ethics is also an important supplement to the rule of law in
libraries. Most of the countries in the world have formulated documents of professional ethics
of libraries. The Library Society of China published the Code of Professional Ethics for Chinese
Librarians (for Trial Implementation) in 2002. However, there are still many issues to be studied
concerning the professional ethics of libraries, such as the relationship between “the rule of virtue”
and “the rule of law”, which is a national governance theory with Chinese characteristics. General
Secretary XI Jinping emphasized that we need to uphold both the rule of law and the rule of virtue
so that they complement and reinforce each other in promoting the modernization of our national
governance system and capacity . It is an important topic to study as to how we can integrate
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the thought of rule of law and rule of virtue into the building of library rule of law and library
professional ethics in the fundamental theory of library science with Chinese characteristics.

4 Conclusion

“Library is a growing organism”, the theory of library science is also a theory of continuous growth
and development, and the fundamental theoretical system of library science is also an open system.
With the progress of librarianship in China and the world, as well as the advancing of the times
and society, the fundamental theoretical research of library science with Chinese characteristics