Public and University Library Service to China’s Developing Market Economy
Abstract
The paper examines the perceived role of public and university libraries in China in facilitating China’s progression from a planned to a market economy. It also examines the debate concerning service to the market economy versus immersion in the market economy. That is to say, to what extent can public and university libraries directly enter the market economy and profit from it? Lastly, there is a discussion of typical forms of service to the market economy in which Chinese libraries are engaged.
A. Social and Political Background
Under the guidance of Mao Zedong, the economy of China between 1949 and 1976 adhered to a planned economy model. Virtually all enterprise was state–owned, what was to be produced was mandated, production quotas were set, and prices were fixed. The Chinese economy developed or retrogressed within the context of a series of national five–year plans. Following the death of Mao in 1976, the chairmanship was assumed by Hua Guofeng. His brief administration, in a ten–year plan announced in February 1978, expressed its intent to emphasize state control of economic development.
The Third Plenum of the Eleventh Central Committee of the Communist Party of China was held in December 1978. At this meeting, a reform faction led by Deng Xiaoping challenged the authority of Hua Guofeng and his supporters, effectively took control of the Party (and hence government) apparatus, and launched China in a new direction, one of “reform and opening (gaige kaifang)”. Of the Third Plenum, Maurice Meisner writes,
The most publicized, and in the long run the most significant, decision of the Third Plenum was to shift the emphasis of the Party's work to socialist modernization. Socialist modernization was hardly a new term, but it was infused with a new meaning. Before, the term had meant the employment of state power to develop a backward economy to serve ultimate socialist goals. Now, it meant the subordination of all considerations, social and otherwise, to the task of rapid national economic development, pure and simple. Politics and political work, accordingly, were no longer primarily seen as the striving to achieve socialism but rather were to be judged mainly by economic criteria.1
This shift in emphasis opened the door for a series of reform initiatives undertaken to modernize both the agricultural and the industrial sectors.
In 1979 and the early 1980s, measures were enacted which de–collectivized Chinese agriculture and which de–emphasized heavy in favor of light industry. Private enterprise was given room to develop and both urban industrial workers and rural peasants were, to a certain extent, given freedom to pursue personal economic gain independent state control. “Economic construction (jingji jianshe)” rather than maintenance of ideological purity became, generally speaking, the motivating force behind Party and government policies.
The movement from a socialist, planned economy to a capitalist, market-driven economy was enunciated clearly at the 14th Congress of the Communist Party of China in October 1992. At this meeting, the Party officially adopted what it called a “socialist market economy (shehui zhuyi shichang jingji)” system. This system, says Meisner, “meant simply... a greater role for market competition and free prices in the Chinese economy.”2
To this point in time, there have been many obvious results of China's post-1978 economic reforms. Private enterprise, much of it funded by foreign sources, now flourishes alongside state–owned industry which is in decline. Prices and wages are determined by the marketplace. Tens of millions of migrant workers from the countryside have made their way to the cities seeking employment. Enterprise has sprung up in rural areas and now employs several million people who once were farmers. The social safety net, a feature of the pre–reform era, has all but disappeared. The pursuit of financial success appears, to many observers, to be the pervasive ethic in China.
This paper will examine the perceived role of public and university libraries in facilitating China’s progression from a planned to a market economy. It will also examine the debate in China concerning that role, a debate that centers firstly on whether libraries should or should not provide service to the burgeoning market economy and, secondly, if the answer to the first question is in the affirmative, raises questions about how that role can be played. Lastly, I will discuss typical forms of service to the market economy in which university and public libraries in China are engaged.
During the period from September 1996 to May 1997,1 was a continuing education student in the Department of Information Management, Peking University, Beijing, China. I had access during those months to the collections of the library of that Department, the Peking University Library, and the Beijing Library (China’s national library). In preparing this article, I have relied on information obtained through interviews with personnel of twenty–six public and university libraries in China and through the examination of seventy–six relevant articles and papers published or presented since 1987.
B. What Is Service to the Market Economy
Provision of service by public and university libraries to the market economy of China is, quite simply, service that furthers economic development at any level and in any way. Such service includes provision of information to economic policy makers in Party and government, assistance to scientists and business leaders, and activities that increase the productive capacity of country folk. Service to the market economy, some argue, also includes activity generated within the market economy by the participation of libraries in the market economy itself. In the opinion of those who espouse this argument, libraries can themselves undertake economic ventures and, by doing so, enhance the market economy as a whole.3, 4
C. Should Libraries Provide Service to the Market Economy
Librarians in China seem to almost universally agree that public and university libraries should, at least in theory, serve China’s market economy. Statements supporting this contention can be found in the literature as far back at least as 1987, although the language of argument used at that time differs from that used in the mid–1990s. Writing in 1987, Jiang Xianing, of the library of Jiangsu Water Power Engineering Community College, asserted that libraries were an important component of “society’s production of commodities (shehui shangpin shengchari)” and that they should “serve the socialist commodity economy”.5 At almost every library I visited, I asked whether libraries should, through service provision, attempt to advance China’s economic development. The answer was invariably “yes”, although this was sometimes qualified by a statement, particularly in the case of university librarians, that, from a practical perspective, conditions did not permit service of this sort to be carried out. The Assistant Director of Nanjing University Library, Mr. Ma Jinchuan (interview, 10 January 1997), for example, informed me unequivocally that university libraries should serve society in its entirety. He felt that, since the university library was funded by the State, it should therefore serve all citizens of the State. In the case of the Nanjing University Library, however, resources were not extensive enough to permit this to take place. Ms. Gao Min of the Beijing University of Transportation noted (interview, 5 March 1997) that, although there had been much talk in university library circles about service to society as a whole and thence service to the market economy, little had been done at the university library level. “It is a case of fighting a war on paper,” she quipped.
In the extensive literature about library service to the market economy, a number of reasons are put forward to support the offering of such service. These may be divided for convenience into four categories which I will discuss in the following paragraphs:
- It is the nature of the library to serve the market economy.
- The library has the resources which permit it to serve the market economy.
- Society needs that which the library has to offer.
- The library will benefit from service provision.
1. It is the nature of the library to serve the market economy
This is expressed in various ways. The library has as one of its primary functions the support of economic construction by means of providing information, says Mr. Van Feng, head of the Research and Guidance Department of Nanjing’s Jinling Library (interview, 10 January 1997. See also 6). This argument may be made in quite straightforward fashion: the library is funded by the citizenry and therefore should serve the citizenry in whatever way is needed (Ma Jinchuan, interview, 10 January 1997). To some, however, this support is almost a higher calling. Shi Chaomei and Ran Xiuping of the Harbin City Library write as follows:
Beginning in the 1970s, as the socialist economy has developed and as market economy activity has given rise to intense competition, information has become the most important factor in determining whether an institution will rise or decline and whether business enterprise will succeed or fail. In the 1990s, national and foreign science and technology have developed at an even faster rate. More than ever, people are aware that information will be the important lifeline in dictating the national economy. We [librarians] must, therefore, recognize the situation clearly, broaden the scope of information service, increase service to the outside, disseminate higher quality information products, and provide better, in–depth information service to all sectors of society. Only in this way can we fulfill the responsibility that the age has bestowed upon us.7
In fact, service provision in support of economic development may be seen to be an almost inevitable step in the evolution of libraries: as society develops, so does the library develop. Society has now reached a stage where information is required. The library has information and is an information provider. Therefore the library must provide information to society in all its manifestations.8
2. The library has the resources which permit it to serve the market economy
Libraries, it is held, have the material resources, the equipment, and the educated personnel that are necessary for information provision.9,10,11 These are superior to the resources of the private information service providers that have come into existence as the Chinese economy has opened. Library employees may, moreover, welcome the opportunity to broaden their spectrum of service and perhaps better themselves financially.12 University libraries are particularly well–endowed.13 Their collections of scientific and technical information are superior to those of public libraries and permit university libraries to provide service to those sectors of society interested in that type of knowledge. In fact, by providing service to society beyond the walls of the university, the university library fulfills an institutional goal by “utilizing its excellent materials and personnel resources to a greater extent, and increasing use and dissemination of the knowledge stored in documents in the library.”14
3. Society needs that which the library has to offer
As China’s economy has grown, businesses and industries have started up, and marketplace development has created a need for information which facilitates the development, production, and marketing of products. Chinese librarians, like their counterparts in North America, perceive the library to be part of the service sector and, if the library provides information for a fee perceive it to be part of an information industry. If libraries wish to further economic construction, they should emphasize their role as part of the information industry.15 Research determined in 1994 that the economic activity generated by China’s information sector accounted for .1 percent of the country’s gross national product. The researcher compared this unfavorably with developed countries where the percentage was 1. This indicated, claimed the researcher, that China was in need of more information service providers.16
Libraries, traditionally, were not perceived in China to be information providers. Between 1949 and 1979, information provision was seen to be the bailiwick of information bureaus (qingbao suo). These were (and are) government offices that provided information of a scientific and technical nature to other government offices. In a country where government was all–pervasive, there was little or no call for scientific and technical information from any institution or individual other than those which were part of government. With reform in the late 1970s, there came a need for information in the private sector which information bureaus were not mandated to meet and which emerging private sector information providers were not able to meet (at least in the opinion of librarians).17 Furthermore, many business enterprises, particularly those which are small– or medium–sized, did not have libraries or information centers of their own, and therefore looked to outside agencies for information that would help them develop, produce, and market products.
The need for information that libraries can supply is particularly acute in rural areas. Not only did farmers alter agricultural practices following post–1978 agricultural reform, but rural enterprise experienced phenomenal growth. There were 19,089,000 township and village level enterprises (xiangzhen qiye) in China by 1994.18 These rural enterprises, says Zhou Daidi, are managed by rural dwellers who are unfamiliar with, and so require information about, the marketplace.19 In addition, agricultural policy makers in the countryside require information. That this is so, says Zhao Huaying, is evidenced by the fact that there have been a number of crises in agriculture in China since 1949. These were all brought about, he believes, because of poor government policy.20 Had policy makers been in possession of more knowledge and better information (that libraries can provide), poor policies would not have been implemented and crises would not have occurred.
4. The library will benefit from service provision
Service to the market economy is seen as bringing many benefits to the library. Many librarians see the market economy as providing an opportunity for libraries to expand their range of services. Such expansion will increase use of the library, or at least serve to combat a perceived drop in library use since the inauguration of China’s economic reforms. Where once there were relatively few recreational activities for the citizenry, thus assuring the popularity of reading and of libraries, the market economy has opened the door for establishment of alternative forms of recreation such as dancing, karaoke, video games, film viewing, and billiards, to name a few. There were, for example, 240,000 businesses of a cultural nature in Zhejiang Province alone in 1994.21 As use of these alternative forms of recreation has increased, use of libraries has decreased, to the consternation of librarians. The Shanghai City Library, we are told, served about 5,000 users a day in the 1980s. This dropped to some 2,000 per day in the early 1990s. The Zhejiang Provincial Library circulated 309,934 books in 1991. The number of books circulated between January and October of 1993 was only 117,750.22 If the library caters to the satisfaction of desires created by the coming of a market economy, it can lure users back.23
The greater the use of the library, the higher is its public profile and the more it will be respected and supported by the public and by government.24,25 Public attention and recognition of its social role will bring the increased financial support from local governments and university administrations which Chinese librarians almost unanimously feel is desperately needed.26 In fact, if the library simply engages in marketplace activity by charging for some of its services, its social position will be heightened.27 It will also thus be able to partially address its chronic money shortage. “Libraries that develop an information business can fundamentally settle their inadequate budget problems. A small investment in information can bring great benefit. The library should make use of this fact and reap substantial economic reward.”28
Some believe that the library will suffer if it does not expand its range of services within the context of the market economy. The opportunity is there for the library and, if this opportunity is allowed to slip by, other bodies will usurp the role of the library. “The library will gradually be whittled away until nothing is left. This is how the marketplace functions.” (Han Pu, Beijing Capital Library, interview, 4 October 1996.) This is reiterated somewhat less dramatically by Zhang Shuhua, professor in the Department of Information Management of Peking University, who, after discussing the information requirements of industry and agriculture, writes that “libraries must be self–reliant and seek out new paths if they are to survive and flourish.”29
D. Should Library Service to the Market Economy be Provided from Without or Within
There is and has been considerable discussion among Chinese librarians concerning the nature of service that libraries can provide to the market economy. Should libraries serve economic construction from the outside, from a position removed from the market economy, or should they immerse themselves in the market economy and provide service to it from within? If libraries adopt the former position, they remain aloof from the financial maneuverings and competitive ethic that dominate the marketplace. They remain pure and unsullied. If they adopt the latter position, they, too, market their services; they, too, compete for the consumer dollar; they, too, become entrepreneurs.
The question of library entrepreneurship has been debated in China for a long time. As early as 1984, papers advocating entrepreneurship were presented at a seminar on reform of libraries. In the early 1980s, and particularly after 1984, it became apparent that government financial grants were not going to meet library needs, and the question of entrepreneurship took on a practical as well as a theoretical dimension. There are still, in 1997, many journal articles that look at this matter. There seems to be general agreement at this time that libraries, in a time of need such as the present, can legitimately be entrepreneurial and can immerse themselves in the market economy.30 Though this is not the ideal situation, some maintain, there is no alternative when budgets are inadequate. (Mr. Zhu Qiang, Peking University Library, interview, 26 December 1996) [also 31]. The debate now centers around the forms which entrepreneurship can legitimately take.
Entrepreneurship in libraries can be very lucrative. Of the 1,200,000 yuan which accrued to the Chongwen District Library in Beijing in 1996, for example, 670,000 yuan were raised by the library. It operates two wholesale and retail outlets adjacent to the main door of the Library, one of which sells books and the other stationery. It also rents out a former meeting room on the top floor of the Library for 350,000 a year, more than the Library’s book budget which, in 1996, was 300,000 yuan. (Li Junling, Chongwen District Library, Beijing, interview, 18 March 1997) [also 32]. The Dalian City Library began to sell books on a commission basis in 1980. In 1983, it started a photography business and, in 1984, set up an “Organization and Implementation Service Department” which, after becoming the representative for Jianeng photocopiers, began to sell, install, and repair that brand of copier and sell parts and supplies for copiers. Between 1980 and 1987, the Library earned 2,157,468 yuan in this way.33 The Dexing City Library earns 20,000 yuan a year by means which include rental of a basement and a meeting room to a construction company for office space and maintenance of small rental collections at the desks of large hotels.34
Dl. Entrepreneurship in Libraries — Reasons for
As mentioned above, libraries in China, as elsewhere, need more money than governments and administrations provide. Many statistics prove the contention that the financial position of libraries has declined since economic reform was implemented in the late 1970s. Although library budgets may have increased, they have not increased as much as cost of library materials (books and journals). The Guangxi College of Industry, for example, bought 9,639 monographs in 1989. The average price per volume was 33 percent greater than the average price per volume purchased in 1988. The average price of the 720 journals to which the library subscribed increased 75 percent between 1988 and 1989.35 This has had an adverse effect on library acquisitions. In 1983, the total number of books purchased by public libraries in China was 15,410,000.36 This had declined to 7,310,000 by 1991.37 Additional statistics reveal that, of the 2,565 public libraries in China in 1992,341 could not afford to add even a single volume to their collections in that year, while another 420 purchased, on the average, fewer than four books per month.38
Inadequate funding also means relatively low pay for library employees. These people are therefore dissatisfied and leave the library to work elsewhere or perform their duties half–heartedly.39 Money that libraries earn by means of charging for some services can be used to supplement employees’ salaries and thus stabilize the library workforce.40
Chinese librarians decry the fact that China lacks library legislation which would mandate the amount of money that libraries receive as operating budget.41 Funding is therefore at the whim of officials whose bottom line is economics and who often, librarians feel, have no concept of the real value of library service. That value is often not immediately apparent. If a business goes bankrupt, employees lose their jobs. The economic impact is obvious and disturbs governments. Budget priorities are in those areas that receive notice. When it comes to budget, libraries receive the leftovers, claims Mr. Han Pu of the Beijing Capital Library (interview, 4 October 1996). Even when guidelines (as opposed to legislation) are in place that stipulate budget size, they are often ignored. According to the 1987 “Regulations Governing the Libraries of Ordinary Institutions of Higher Education (Putong Gaodeng Xuexiao Tushuguan Guicheng)”, universities are supposed to give 5 percent of their annual operating budgets to their libraries. Conversations with university librarians indicate that the 5 percent figure is seldom reached.42
D2. Entrepreneurship in Libraries — Definitions
It has become commonplace to distinguish between two types of library entrepreneurship: “paid service (youchang fuwu)” and “revenue–generating activities (jingying huodong)”. “Paid service” is seen to be that which is within the parameters of that which is commonly believed to be library work and which makes use of library materials, equipment, and expertise. The term “revenue–generating activities” is generally used to refer to library entrepreneurial ventures that have nothing to do with what is considered to be traditional library service and which have nothing to do with the raison d’être of the library. The term chuangshou is also used by some to mean “revenue–generating activities”, thus creating a degree of confusion. For the purposes of this paper, I will follow the lead of Professor Tan Xiangjin of the Zhongshan University Department of Information Management.43 He uses chuangshou to mean all activity in which a library may be involved which earns money for the library, and “paid service” and “revenue–generating activities” in the senses described above.44
Some typical activities which would fall under the “paid service” rubric include scientific dissemination of information, information advisory service, online searches, and what the International Federation of Library Associations in 1986 spoke of as “value–added service”.45 Paid service, writes Peng Daojie, “involves work by library staff over and above the ordinary. Library staff take scattered knowledge and turn it into pertinent information. They assist users to transform scientific knowledge into productive energy”.46 This contrasts with revenue–generating activities which include such things as renting out library space, selling foodstuffs or clothing, operating shops, and producing salable consumer goods.
It is often argued that the library, if it reworks its material resources to produce “information products (xinxi chanpin)” or “information commodities (xinxi shangpin)”, is justified in charging for them by virtue of the fact that they are products or commodities and, as such, are marketable (Dong Hai, Dongcheng District Library, Beijing, interview, 4 October 1996) [also 47]. This is even more the case if the information supplied by the library is put to economic use by the recipient of the information. Mr. Gu Jianren, of Jinling Library in Nanjing, adds a novel twist to this argument. Libraries, he writes, can create and sell something which may be called “intelligent information service”. “Intelligent information” is more than just judiciously selected or even evaluated library materials; it also includes opinion or advice of library staff. Mr. Gu states that the library is legally liable for any opinion or advice it may proffer and so is justified in charging a fee which actually contributes to the risk insurance of the library.48
D3. Entrepreneurship in Libraries — Government Policy
Many government and Communist Party of China policy documents, and statements by highly placed officials in government, support and encourage both paid service and revenue–generating activities in libraries. In 1983, during the early years of economic reform, the Central Committee of the Communist Party released a document entitled “Opinions About Strengthening Mass Cultural Work in Cities, Mines, and Factories (Guanyu Jiaqiang Chengshi, Changkuang Qunzhong Wenhua Gongzuo de Ji Dian Yijian).” One sentence of this document reads, “Appropriate fees can be charged for some mass cultural activities in order to supplement underfunding of those activities.”49 Libraries, as providers of “mass cultural activity”, were seen to fall within the scope specified by this sentence.
In February of 1987, the national Ministry of Culture, Ministry of Finance, and Bureau for Industry and Business Management promulgated the document “Temporary Measures for Cultural Institutions Wishing to Engage in Paid Service and/or Revenue–Generating Activities (Wenhua Shiye Danwei Kaifa Youchang Fuwu he Jingying Huodong Zhanxing Banfa).”50 The preamble to the nine clauses of this document in effect gives blessing to both paid service and revenue–generating activity in the cultural sector. The promulgating bodies state approvingly that many cultural bodies have already begun to charge for some services and derive financial benefit in order to augment inadequate budgets. This has enabled cultural entities to expand their range of services and improve the quality of those services. They go on to caution, however, that some paid service and some of the revenue–generating activities in which cultural bodies have been engaged prior to the release of the document have been either impractical or have had a deleterious impact on other work of those bodies, and add that it is for this reason that the present document has been written. In fact, articles about paid services and revenue–generating library activities often mention the dangers of such services and activities. The primary perceived danger is the negative effect services of an economic nature may have on free service.
...there are some libraries which perceive only the financial benefit side of paid service and which, as a result, neglect, or even put aside, their traditional goals as libraries. These libraries put effort only into raising money, to the point where, without a second thought, they convert library space to money raising activities at the expense of library users. Lending and reading room service, originally free, as well as basic reference service are converted inappropriately to paid service.”51
Clause one of “Temporary Measures...” is relevant to public libraries wishing to either offer paid service or engage in revenue–generating activity. It says explicitly that cultural entities can operate in such a way as to better themselves financially, but tempers this by cautioning that pursuit of “economic benefit” takes second place to “social benefit”. The clause reads, in part:
Cultural bodies must persevere in provision of service to the people and to socialism. They must harmonize social benefit with economic benefit, with social benefit being of most importance.... As they maintain this unity of free service and paid service, they can energetically undertake “using culture to support culture (yi wen bu wen)” paid service and revenue–generating activities.52
Clause two goes on to offer a lengthy list of examples of both paid service and revenue–generating activities.
The aforementioned Regulations Governing the Libraries of Ordinary Institutions of Higher Education extends the right to earn money to university libraries:
Those university libraries with conditions that permit should give free rein to the superior resources and expertise of the university. They should provide information and technical advisory service to society at large. They can, in accordance with materials and labor costs involved or in accordance with the eventual practical benefit deriving from the information or advice provided, charge an equitable fee.53
Government, then, encourages university libraries both to provide service to society at large and to charge for such service where charge is warranted or justified. Prior to the promulgation of these regulations, the role of university libraries had been limited to support of teaching and research within the university. The Regulations enjoined the university library to adopt a third role: service provider to society.
The caveat in the document of February 1987 specifying that social benefit should take precedence over economic benefit in planning the work of cultural bodies is open to interpretation. How does one know when regard for social benefit has been superseded by pursuit of economic benefit? There is therefore considerable confusion and debate in library circles about the exact boundaries of both paid service and revenue–generating activities.54, 55 A document released in late 1987 by the Ministry of Propaganda, the Ministry of Culture, the State Education Commission, and the Academy of Science fueled the debate. This document includes the following statement: “At the same time [as libraries] carry out unpaid service in the public interest, they can carry out responsible, special, paid service, although the object of this service should not be to earn money....”56 About this rather ambiguous sentence, Long Xuntian writes that the initial part was taken very seriously and that it opened the door wide for paid service in libraries. He adds, though, that libraries have far exceeded the limits suggested by the second part. It is easy to see that it would be difficult for outsiders to determine whether the object of a service is to earn money or not. Mr. Long quotes a fellow librarian as writing, after the promulgation of the above–mentioned document, that “All libraries can, according to their individual circumstances, consider carrying out a small amount, a moderate amount, or full–scale paid service.”57
E. How Libraries Provide Service to the Market Economy
E1. Public Libraries
Public libraries have progressed faster in serving the market economy than have university libraries. This is, in part, because public libraries traditionally, in theory, served all people, whereas university libraries were closed to those beyond the walls of the university. Consequently public librarians have not had to debate about the nature of their true constituency.
Public library service to the market economy can be divided for convenience into a number of types, namely, (1) publications; (2) information service; (3) information centers; (4) seminars and lectures; (5) courses; (6) contractual and cooperative ventures; and (7) traveling exhibits.
I will deal with each of these, one by one, in the following paragraphs.
1. Publications
Preparation of “information newsletters (xinxi bao)” which are distributed free or for a price is a common form of public library market economy service provision. These newsletters are typically about current economic issues and are either topical or general in nature. They may be published regularly or intermittently and may be ongoing or “one–shot” publications. Almost all county and city libraries in Liaoning Province, for example, produced newsletters in 1994.58 In the ten–year period prior to 1996, over half the public libraries in Hubei province at one time or another edited newsletters.59 They are prepared with specific audiences in mind. The so–called “policy (juece)” newsletters are directed toward government and Party officials who need information to aid them in policy formation. A second audience consists of business managers who require information which will be of assistance in keeping abreast of consumer interests and product development. Yet a third audience includes folk involved in agriculture, either at the administrative level in rural towns and villages or in the fields.
Newsletters vary in content from mere collection and reprinting of articles published elsewhere in newspapers and magazines, to provision of abstracts, to analysis by library staff of the topical information they have collected. Some libraries have established departments whose sole purpose is the production of newsletters, while others have set up companies which operate semi–independently of the library and offer strictly paid service.60 The Shenzhen City Library, for example, has a department which copies articles in newspapers and magazines, arranges these copies according to topic, and distributes them daily, weekly, or bi–weekly according to subscriber needs in subject–oriented newsletters. Newsletters are prepared in the following subject areas: banking, foreign finance, stocks, securities, futures, the gold market, insurance, real estate, trends in internal trade, trends in foreign trade, advertising, environmental management, business management, and so on.
A sampling of titles of newsletters published by other libraries will serve to illustrate the breadth of scope of newsletter subject areas. The Jilin Provincial Library produces “Important News of the Day (Meiri Yao Wen)” which is delivered each morning to top provincial leaders in Jilin Province. This newsletter is reportedly viewed by these officials to be “necessary breakfast (bibei zaocan)”.61 Titles of newsletters produced by the Dandong City Library in Liaoning Province include “Circumstances Concerning Implementation of Food Production Engineering in Certain Areas (Ge Di Cailanzi Gongcheng Shishi Qingkuang)”, “What to do About Economic Decline (Jingji Huapo Zenmeban)”, and “How to Deal With the Triangular Debt of Business Enterprises (Zenyang Jiejue Qiye Sanjiao Zhai)”, while the Zhongshan Library in Guangdong Province published “Information About Temperature–Controlled Refrigerators (Kongtiao Bingxiang Xinxi)” in 1993 when refrigerators and air–conditioners were popular consumer items in China.
Distribution of newsletters can be of financial benefit to their producers. They are often sold to subscribers, the library thus realizing a profit.62 Alternatively, newsletters distributed free–of–charge sometimes result in unanticipated (though perhaps hoped–for) financial benefit. The Shenyang City Library began to publish “Policy Reference (Juece Cankao)” in the mid–1980s for distribution to city government and Party employees. In 1988, the city responded by granting 20,000 yuan to the library to support the continuation of the publication.
2. Information service
Public libraries provide information in various ways to businesses and, in this manner, can be seen to promote the development of the market economy. Information may be provided in answer to a specific request on a one–time basis (zhuanti fuwu); or provided on an ongoing basis about a particular topic (dingti fuwu); or provided on an ongoing basis to assist a business enterprise in determining what products it should produce, how to produce them, and how they can best be marketed. This last form of information service has a unique name in China—“tracking service (genzong fuwu)”. As an example of the extent of the first–named type of information provision, the Jinling Library of Nanjing, according to Mr. Yan Feng (interview, 10 January 1997), has a select group of users for whom it provides information in response to specific requests as required. In 1996 alone, the library prepared information on over 1,000 topics for people in this user group. Libraries in and around Dandong City perform over 300 literature searches a year in support of local scientific research.63
The “tracking service” should be of interest to North American librarians. Service of this type is most often provided to small– and medium–sized business enterprises or newly established enterprises that have no information service or library of their own, whose owners and managers lack knowledge of information sources, and which are often technologically backward. Such enterprises are often in the countryside, and library service to them indirectly supports national rural development plans such as the “Spark Plan (Xinghuo Jihua)” and the “Bumper Harvest Plan (Feng Shou Jihua)”. The “Spark Plan” was enunciated in 1985 and is designed to encourage the development of small– and medium–sized enterprise in the countryside, while the “Bumper Harvest Plan”, adopted in 1987, has as its intention the increase of crop production, animal husbandry, and aquaculture.64 In 1989, for example, the Liaoning Provincial Library became involved in “tracking service” about mushrooms. As the initial step in the process, the library collected sixteen articles on mushroom growing and disseminated the information contained therein to mushroom growers and agricultural technicians. After a crop was produced, the library provided information on processing to a company that developed eight products including mushroom juice, mushroom sugar, and quick frozen mushrooms.65
Information provision can sometimes be carried to lengths unusual by North American standards. In 1990, a factory was set up in Liaoning Province to produce sulfuric acid. The manufacturing process left a residue of arsenic in the acid, making it unsaleable. The problem came to the attention of the Dandong City Library. This library had in its employ someone educated as a chemist. After undertaking some research, the employee suggested two ways to solve the problem and, after personal experimentation in the Dandong Light Industry Research Station, determined that one of the procedures was workable. Under the guidance of the employee, the factory implemented the procedure and was able to sell its acid.66 The Beijing Capital Library became involved in information provision in 1984. A local television production company required information about canals in China which the Library’s Beijing Region Document Department was able to furnish. Over the years the Library gained a reputation for providing historical information about China, and particularly Beijing. The Library has recently contracted with the City of Beijing to write twenty volumes of a proposed 130–volume history of the city.
Provision of information is a common form of paid service. The Shanghai Public Library, in China second only to the country’s National Library in size, earns an average of 1,100,000 yuan a year through information service for agriculture and industry, while the “Information Development Company (Xinxi Kaifa Zong Gongsi)” established by the Dandong City Library earns over 200,000 yuan annually.67 When service is free, grateful recipients of information sometimes make financial contributions to the library which, I was told, the library does not refuse (Mr. Wang Yingguo, Liaoning Provincial Library, interview, 11 March 1997). The literature is rife with “success stories” that indicate the economic value of information service provided by libraries to business. Two illustrative examples are as follows. The Yanling County Library of Hunan Province supplied a wood products factory with “tracking information” which enabled it to develop a new product. The factory produced and sold 300,000 yuan worth of the product at a profit of over 60,000 yuan.68 The Liaoning Provincial Library provided the Liaoyang City Economic Trade Service with the knowledge that Japanese supplies of a certain type of bean were low. The end result was a sale of 2,000 tons of the bean to Japan at a price of 1,000,000 yuan.69
3. Information centers
In an attempt to cater to the information needs of certain elements of society, some public libraries set up special centers for the use of those elements. Some centers cater to local officials, such as that established by the Liaoning Province Anshan City Library where government and Party personnel can search for material by themselves or with the help of Library staff. Others are for the benefit of people with particular occupational interests. I was able to visit two centers of this latter type in district libraries in Beijing. The Dongcheng District Library operates a Center for Information on Apparel Design. This Center subscribes to about 120 Chinese and foreign journals about clothing, and purchases pertinent books and videos. Businesses, mostly clothing manufacturers in the locale, are charged a flat fee of 200 yuan a year to use the Center. The Center also prepares clothing advertisements for a fee and maintains a list of part–time models for these advertisements.
The Chongwen District Library in Beijing established the Beijing Packaging Materials Center in 1990. It has a full–time staff of one person and occupies two rooms and an office in the Library. One of the rooms is devoted to journals, in a variety of languages, which deal with packaging. The other room contains collections of brochures of packaging manufacturers and samples of packaging supplied by companies from around the world. These companies pay 200 yuan a year to place their advertising and wares in the Center. The staff–person has available two electronic databases about packaging, which he will search for clients. The Center holds seminars, training sessions, and exhibitions of packaging, and will provide all types of information about packaging, including patents and translations.
The Shenhe District Library in Shenyang has established a service much akin to the centers described above. That library has set aside a room for materials on stocks and securities, presently a hot topic in China. People use the material on a “pay as you go” basis. The room is furnished with two computers which provide the latest information from the Shenyang and Shanghai stock exchanges. There are even telephones so that anxious investors can buy or sell stocks and securities without leaving the room. Every Sunday the Library holds a “salon (shalong)” to which it invites stocks and securities experts to come and discuss markets. The public can attend these sessions for a fee.
4. Seminars and lectures
Libraries use seminars and lectures as a means to provide knowledge to their clientele and thus serve the market economy. The Shanghai Library, for example, opened a “seminar center (jiangzuo zhongxin)” in the 1980s. This center sponsors a variety of activities, one of which is seminars on timely topics such as China’s new tax structure, a subject of great interest after its introduction in late 1993. Between 1989 and 1994, the Library put on over 100 seminars. There is a charge for admission.
The “information release meeting (xinxi fabu hui)” is a commonly–used forum by which public libraries, particularly at the city and county level, provide information of current interest to both urban and rural dwellers. These meetings are rather informal affairs at which information prepared by the library is distributed to attendees and at which there is considerable opportunity for exchange of ideas and experience. They usually deal with topics relating to economic development and are geared to business and commerce. The Liaoning Provincial Library holds information release meetings in rural areas several times each year. It sometimes does so in partnership with local libraries. In 1992, for example, the Liaoning Provincial Library and the Benxi City Library held four information release meetings in Hengren County. At these meetings, videos on scientific crop production and growing ginseng were shown, a lecture on aquaculture was delivered, library books were displayed, and the booklet “Spark Information” was handed out.70
A variation on the information release meeting is the “legal inquiry activity (falu zixun huodong)” held once a month by the Nanjing Jinling Library. The object of this activity is to raise the legal consciousness of the people of Nanjing during a time when new laws are coming into existence, but the populace lacks a framework of knowledge of legal governance into which to fit these laws. The Library has an arrangement with the Nanjing Lawyers’ Association by which a number of lawyers come to the Library for an entire day once a month and discuss legal matters with interested citizens. An average of 2,000 people attend each time at no cost to themselves.
5. Courses
Public libraries often hold courses (peixun ban) during the evenings and on weekends for the benefit of students and of those in the workforce. These courses tend to be in subject areas that are of public interest at the moment. Foreign languages (English in particular), computer literacy, and accounting are typical offerings in urban settings, while courses on such topics as “fruit growing at home”, sewing, and mushroom cultivation have been popular in the rural environment. The library typically engages an outside expert to teach a course, pays that person a fee, and charges those who register tuition. The library thus not only facilitates the diffusion of knowledge which will enable people to better themselves within the context of the market economy, but also realizes financial gain.
6. Contractual and Cooperative Ventures
Public libraries often sign contractual agreements to serve as information providers over the long term to governments, large– or medium–sized enterprises, township/village enterprises, and joint venture companies. These are now known in common parlance as “library–enterprise alliances (tu qi lianhe ti)”. In 1987, the Shenyang City Library and the Beiling Township of Liaoning Province signed a contract by which the Library undertook to assist the economic development of the Township by providing information service to businesses in the Township. The Library first circulated a questionnaire to businesses to assess their information needs and, on this basis, set up an information network which included itself, some local libraries, and approximately 100 small– and medium–sized businesses. The Library even provided training about information theory and retrieval to employees of the businesses. Sometimes the contract specifies that the library receive payment in money for its contractual service. Sometimes the payment is in kind. The Fujian Provincial Library and the Furi Television Company have an agreement by which the Library, at fixed times of the year, provides the Company with current information which meets its requirements, while the Company supplies the Library with audio–visual equipment.71
Cooperative arrangements are usually made between libraries and government agencies that have as their common goal economic development. The Huzhou City Library and the city Science Council have established a “Silk and Clothing Economics Information Network” which distributes information about the use of silk in apparel manufacture.72 Following the inauguration of the Spark Plan in 1985, the Liaoning Provincial Library and other libraries in Liaoning Province established an information network which included the libraries and over twenty local science councils, science associations, township/village business enterprise bureaus, and agricultural technology extension stations.73 The Hubei Provincial Library has likewise been involved in cooperative ventures which have as their aim the improvement of agricultural methods and rural life. That Library has acted with provincial science councils and agricultural departments to make knowledge of agricultural technology available to farmers.74 Zhang Shuhua writes of a type of cooperative arrangement that, she says, was in its infancy in 1995. This involves the formation of small research units consisting of librarians, agricultural technologists, and farmers. The librarians provide the information required to facilitate the agricultural research work of the units.75
7. Traveling exhibits
Traveling exhibits or displays of library materials are often mounted by public libraries in the countryside where local libraries are not well–endowed. Rural folk and entrepreneurs in country areas often have no idea of the breadth and depth of the collections and services of provincial and city libraries, and also have limited opportunity to travel to the larger centers where those libraries are located. Exhibits are usually combined efforts of the relatively well–endowed libraries in provincial capitals or other cities and either the small local libraries in rural centers or local agricultural councils or organizations and, if they are directed at farmers, are held at such times as farmers normally congregate in those centers.76
Traveling exhibits include scientific/technical materials in which rural dwellers might be interested from the collections of the urban libraries.77 The exhibits may, as well, include displays of photographs of agricultural research projects, samples of the results of such projects, and video showings. Between 1985 and 1994, the Jiangsu Provincial Library and various local libraries together put on over fifty traveling exhibits throughout Jiangsu for the benefit mainly of township/village business enterprises. Local library staff first met with local businesses to determine what sorts of exhibits would be appropriate. Each exhibit concentrated on a single theme. The Provincial Library collected about 3,000 relevant items and sent them on a temporary basis to the local library. If a question was raised at an exhibit to which those in charge were unable to respond, staff of the Provincial Library would continue to work on the question after the conclusion of the exhibit. For example, one exhibit was held in a region noted for the production of alcoholic beverages. Material sent to the area by the Provincial Library included information about the technology and standards of liquor production and about the packaging of the final product. Exhibits, we are told, sometimes produce immediately recognizable results. An unsuccessful Jiangsu textile factory was on the verge of closing its doors in 1989. It used information obtained at a traveling exhibit to establish a better procedure for printing cloth for shirts. The factory was able to turn a quick profit and was saved from collapse. It also went on to establish itself as a forerunner in the production of high quality material for shirts.78
E2. University Libraries
University libraries in China seem limited in the scope of their service to the market economy to production of publications and provision of information service. Libraries of agricultural universities are by far the most active.
1. Publications
Whereas publications of public libraries tend to be of the tabloid variety, university libraries that edit publications produce something of more substance: books and journals. This reflects the more scholarly nature of the university library. Both the Shenyang Agricultural University Library and the China University of Agriculture (East Campus) publish journals. The latter institution produces three technical titles, Chinese Agricultural Abstracts: Agricultural Machinery, a bi–monthly begun in 1989 that is distributed to 700 subscribers; The Agricultural Machinery Marketplace; and a bulletin of documents from scientific conferences that goes to 1,000 subscribers. The China University of Agriculture (East Campus) also produces books, such as The Theory and Practice of Agricultural Engineering in Dry Areas, as does the Information Department of the Hebei University of Agriculture, which compiled information about soil conservation from journals and newspapers and edited two books, The Technology of Growing Special Vegetable Crops and Cultivation of High–Yield Vegetable Crops and Land Conservation.
2. Information Provision
Libraries of agricultural universities, of which there were sixty–two in 1992, are quite active in providing agricultural information to the countryside. Researchers and faculty of these universities carry on experiments with new techniques and crop varieties and it is often the library that makes the results of the research known to agronomists in the field by means of the aforementioned information release meetings or exhibits. The Library of Hunan College of Agriculture has a cooperative arrangement with more than twenty counties in Hunan Province by which it supplies them with information about new agricultural products. Both the libraries of the China University of Agriculture (West Campus) and the Guangxi University of Agriculture have involved students who are themselves from the countryside in supplying information to rural areas. The latter Library maintains a student network of about 130 students who, when they go to their homes during the summer and winter holidays, take with them University research results for distribution in the communities in which they live. The former Library has taken this a step further. It has established an Agricultural Research Agency which, at the time I visited the Library in mid–January 1997, had printed a questionnaire which students from the countryside were to take to their homes during the February holiday and have completed by local government officials responsible for agriculture. The questionnaire was designed to assess the needs of farmers in the locales where the students resided. Based on survey results, the Library intended to send out customized information packets to each official for use with farmers. This was to be free of charge, but the Library had hopes that, once farmers became aware that agricultural information was of value to them, they would be willing to pay for it (Song Jifang, interview, 16 January 1997).
The personnel with whom I spoke in a number of university libraries suggested that university libraries had as their primary responsibility service to the university community, and therefore did little to serve a non–university clientele or contribute to the emerging market economy of China. The Library of Nanjing University was willing to assist outside researchers obtain information in the Library provided they had letters of introduction. The Library of Liaoning University performed literature searches for local business enterprises. Its associate director, Mr. Huo Wenjie, told me (interview, 14 March 1997) that many of these searches were carried out for clients who wished to determine if research had already been carried out in an area in which they were interested (keji cha xin). Other information supplied was of the information tracking variety. For on–going service of this type the Library charged a fee. The Library of Dongnan University in Nanjing, according to Chen Ji of the Library (interview, 10 January 1997), had established a Science and Technology Inquiry Station (“Keji Chaxun Gongzuo Zhan”) which provided information search service to the non–university community for a fee.
F. Factors that Inhibit Library Service to the Market Economy
Although there is a considerable body of literature regarding library service to China’s market economy, there is still the perception by some librarians, particularly those employed in a university setting, that there are barriers to be overcome before libraries can realize their full potential in this endeavor.79 Zhang Ping, of the library of the Xian University of Science and Engineering, enunciates the following university librarian perspective:
Since the 14th Plenum of the Communist Party, China’s economic structure has begun to move toward that of a socialist market economy. There is a major change in society. This change had affected the total society including the library. There is a general tendency for libraries to face the battlefield where the economy is being established. Nevertheless, the facts are disappointing. Whether it is because of years of conservatism or confinement, or because librarians are too bookish and like to write about war rather than engage in it, the pace of movement is always a meter behind that of everyone else.80
Service provision to the market economy is inhibited, the literature suggests, by the following factors: staff inadequacies, lack of computer databases and networks, public ignorance, lack of cooperation among libraries, and an innate dichotomy between libraries and the market economy. I will examine the first and last of these in the following sentences.
Staff are seen as inadequate in these two ways: limited skills and knowledge may hamper their ability to render service; and years of library stagnation may have affected their ability to deal creatively with a new environment, as Zhang Ping suggests in the above quotation. Li Donghong and Wang Li write that, because society is changing and as science “comes to the fore (yongxian)”, librarians have to both master new technologies such as computers and microforms, and familiarize themselves with manifestations of the market economy such as the stock market and futures trading.81 Librarians, they feel, must understand how the market economy functions in order to serve it. Taking this a step further, a number of authors contend that librarians have yet to fully realize that the information resources of which they are custodians have both practical value and value as a commodity.82, 83 Librarians must “liberate their thought and change their perceptions”, comments Qiao Yiping.84
The dichotomy between library and market economy is enunciated by Tan Xiangjin. In general, he says, libraries have historically perceived information differently than does the marketplace. The library sees a progression from information to knowledge to understanding to wisdom, whereas the marketplace sees a transition from information to knowledge to product to profit. To be specific, there are, he claims, a number of ways in which library and marketplace perceptions of information differ. Libraries see all information as being of equal value and therefore strive to collect as much of it as they can. The marketplace, however, sees only the information that is relevant at a particular time as having value and seeks to eliminate, or at least ignore, that which is extraneous. The library traditionally waits for its clientele to come to the library and use its information resources. In the marketplace, information must be actively delivered. The library has historically maintained that information is free. To the marketplace, it is a commodity that can be bought and sold. The library does not suffer a penalty if it cannot supply what a user wants. Those active in the market economy may suffer an economic penalty if the information they need is not forthcoming.85
G. Administration of Service to the Market Economy
There is a desire on the part of librarians to keep separate their traditional service and service directed at the market economy, particularly if the latter is of the paid service or revenue–generating activity variety. Therefore, although some libraries entrust their service in support of economic development to departments with other responsibilities,86 many establish new units which focus on new forms of economy–oriented activity. Some of these are structured so as to function independently of other library units. There are many examples of public libraries’ registering limited companies to handle both paid service and revenue–generating activities.87 The Jiaozhou City Library of Shandong, in an effort to keep its paid service and revenue–generating activities separate, established two departments to administer the latter, a wholesale book service department and a sales department. The Library also purchased the requisite equipment and opened a billiard hall for the pleasure of the neighboring community. Although regular staff members monitored the operation of the hall, they did so in their off–hours, thus maintaining a separation between their regular library labor and work in the billiard hall.88
Charging formulae for paid service and revenue–generating activities, and for the distribution of profits realized, are contentious issues, particularly the latter. That there is no nation–wide agreement on how to set fees is sometimes lamented.89 There have been formulae established at lower levels, however, and these are used by some libraries. The China Academy of Agriculture Library has published fee guidelines which are used by agricultural universities. These, I was told, take into consideration the number of reference tools used to provide the information that satisfies a client, scope of the problem or question posed by a client, number of keywords used in searches, and number of citations supplied to a client.90
The literature suggests that the distribution of profits is fraught with potential problems. Friction between departments and even between individuals can result if money is seen be unfairly distributed. This is especially true when money earned by the library is used to provide employee bonuses, as is often the case.91 The potential for animosity would be particularly great, one would surmise, when bonuses are given out on the basis of how hard employees are perceived to work. This is the policy in the semi–autonomous Beijing Region Document Department of the Beijing Capital Library. In that department, bonuses given employees are equivalent in amount to their salaries. Mr. Han Pu, the head of the Department, admits unabashedly (interview, 4 October 1996) that bonuses are used to motivate employees. Employees of the department engage in paid service after their normal work is completed. This often involves overtime. One assumes that, if the lure of financial reward is great, overtime is not a major issue.
Some examples of ways in which money earned by libraries is used would be instructive. The Dalian City Library realized a profit of 2,157,468 yuan through revenue–generating activities between 1980 and 1987. Of this money, 836,010 yuan were used to buy books, shelving, card catalogues, typewriters, and a motor vehicle, and to refurbish stack areas. A sum of 247,669 yuan was spent on these employee benefits: a nursery, cafeteria, seven dormitories, and newspapers and journals for the exclusive use of employees. Twenty thousand yuan were also earmarked for employee education each year, and 158,447 yuan were used for employee bonuses. The Guangzhou City Library uses 50 percent of its paid service revenue for library development, 25 percent for the material benefit of its employees, and 20 percent for bonuses, and keeps 5 percent in reserve. A residence has been constructed which houses forty–five staff members; twelve photocopiers costing 400,000 yuan have been purchased; and a copy center has been opened.92
Conclusion
I have written this article for two reasons, namely, a desire to contribute to international understanding, and a belief that the Chinese public and university library experience in provision of service to the market economy—to agriculture, business, factories, mining operations, government officials—may suggest new North American library service options. Certainly China and North America are different. Their library systems are different. Well–established corporate and government libraries in North America may be all that are needed to provide information that fuels economic development. However, in a time when both North American governments and private enterprises are downsizing and corporate and government libraries are suffering, it may also be true that there is a role for libraries of other types. As well, many large corporations not only downsize, but also contract work out to smaller companies that may not be able to afford libraries. There may be an information need here that is as yet unmet. Chinese librarians feel that their service to the market economy will be better once computer networks are in place in China and libraries cooperate more.93, 94, 95 North American libraries already cooperate. They already have computer networks in place. The information is there and can be obtained by those who know how to do so. Perhaps it is time for North American public and university libraries to look more closely at service to constituencies that they have formerly largely ignored. Perhaps, as has been the case in China, service to the market economy has the potential to not only improve the financial situation of libraries, but also to integrate libraries more fully into mainstream society and thus enhance their value as institutions.
References
1. Maurice Meisner, The Deng Xiaoping Era: An Inquiry into the fate of Chinese Socialism, 1978–1994 (New York: Hill and Wang, 1996): 99.
2. Ibid: 480.
3. Fang Caiyu, Bai Mingcheng, and Wang Xin, “Tushuguan wei xiangzhen qiye shichang jingji fuwu (Library market economy service to township and village enterprises),” Tushuguan Xue Yanjiu, 1994–6: 23-24.
4. Xiang Qinghuan and Zhi Xia, “Gaoxiao tushuguan gaige de xianshi xuanze (Realistic options for university library reform),” Gaoxiao Tushuguan Gongzuo, 1995–3: 1–3, 7.
5. Jiang Xianing, “Gonggong tushuguan keyi jianli shangpin xinxi fuwu bu: yu Guan Shuyuan tongzhi shangque (Public libraries can establish commodity information service departments: a response to comrade Guan Shuyuan),” Heilongjiang Tushuguan, 1987–2: 24.
6. Teng Chuanyuan, “Lun Jiangsu diqu gonggong tushuguan de keji shuzhan gongzuo ji qi yiyi (The theory and meaning of the science and technology book exhibits of Jiangsu region public libraries).” Paper presented at the conference “Shichang Jingji yu Tushuguan Fuwu” held in Dandong, Liaoning, 12–14 September 1994: 5.
7. Shi Chaomei and Ran Xiuping, “Fazhan shehui zhuyi shichang jingji yu shenhua tushuguan xinxi fuwu zhi guanjian (An opinion about the developing market economy and deepening the information service of libraries).” Paper presented at the conference “Shichang Jingji yu Tushuguan Fuwu” held in Dandong, Liaoning, 12–14 September 1994: 2.
8. Gui Shunai and Yu Yongxiang, “Guanyu tushuguan jianli wenxian xinxi kaifa fuwu zhongxin ruogan wenti de sikao (Thoughts on several questions concerning libraries establishing information development service centers).” Paper presented at the conference “Shichang Jingji yu Tushuguan Fuwu” held in Dandong, Liaoning, 12–14 September 1994.
9. Zhou Daidi, “Lue lun nongye gaoxiao tushuguan fazhan keji xinxi fuwu ye (A cursory examination of the development of science and technology information service businesses in agricultural university libraries),” Nongye Tushu Qingbao Xue Kan, 1994–2: 32–34.
10. Lu Qing and Wu Xu, “Dui fazhan gaoxiao xinxi fuwu de duan xiang (Details about developing information service in universities),” Jiangxi Tushuguan Xue Kan, 1994–1: 68–71.
11. Han Wei and Wang Aiqin, “Guanyu shichang jingji yu tushuguan de ji dian sikao (Thoughts about the market economy and libraries).” Paper presented at the conference “Shichang Jingji yu Tushuguan Fuwu” held in Dandong, Liaoning, 12–14 September 1994.
12. Wang Cuihua, “Tushuguan yu shichang jingji (Libraries and the market economy),” Shandong Tushuguan Ji Kan, 1995–2: 25–27.
13. It should be noted that staffing of university libraries in China differs somewhat from staffing of academic libraries in North America. In North America, the key to a position as an academic librarian is a master's degree from an accredited university faculty of library or information science. In China, university libraries, as well as hiring personnel with undergraduate degrees in librarianship, also hire personnel with degrees in various of the sciences and with degrees in language studies. Such personnel are invaluable in libraries of institutions that specialize (as many universities in China do) in a narrow aspect of science, engineering, or technology, or that order significant material in foreign languages.
14. Fu Laixu, Jue Fumei, and Li Jianqiao, “Gaoxiao tushuguan shehui hua fuwu gongneng dingwei (The state of university libraries role as service providers to society),” Shandong Tushuguan Ji Kan, 1996–2: 18.
15. Tan Xiangjin, “Gaige lu zai he fang—tushuguan congshi xinxi fuwuye de sikao (Where lies the path of reform? Thoughts on libraries starting information service businesses),” Tushuguan, 1994–6: 19–21.
16. Zhang Housheng, “Shichang jingji yu tushuguan xinxi fuwu (The market economy and information service in libraries).” Paper presented at the conference “Shichang Jingji yu Tushuguan Fuwu” held in Dandong, Liaoning, 12–14 September 1994.
17. There are various estimates about the number of private sector information providers active in China. Mr. Huang Yahai says that, in 1995, there were more than 60,000 information advisory businesses in the country. (“Zhuazhu jiyu: fazhan tushuguan xinxi fuwu chanye (Seize the opportunity: develop information service businesses in libraries),” Sichuan Tushuguan Xuebao, 1995–3: 14–18.) Zhang Housheng, however, states that, in 1994, there were 414 independent scientific and technical information centers and 33,000 registered information advisory businesses in China [see 16].
18. Zhang Jianguo, “Zhongguo gonggong tushuguan wei nongye jingji fuwu de shizeng yanjiu (Substantive research about the service provided by Chinese public libraries in support of the agricultural economy).” Paper presented at the conference “Shichang Jingji yu Tushuguan Fuwu” held in Dandong, Liaoning, 12–14 September 1994: 4.
19. Zhou, “Lue lun nongye”: 32.
20. Zhao Huaying, “Zai zou xiang shichang jingji guocheng zhong: tushuguan wei nongye jingji fuwu de lilun yu shijian (The theory and practice of library service to the agricultural economy during the process of movement towards a market economy).” Paper presented at the conference “Shichang Jingji yu Tushuguan Fuwu” held in Dandong, Liaoning, 12–14 September 1994.
21. Xiang Yiping, “Da wenhua—shichang jingji tiaojian xia tushuguan de yi zhong xuanze (Big culture—a choice for libraries under market economy conditions).” Paper presented at the conference “Shichang Jingji yu Tushuguan Fuwu” held in Dandong, Liaoning, 12–14 September 1994.
22. Ibid. : 1.
23. The Huangpu District Library of Shanghai, for example, in order to combat public sector cultural competition, has established a “humor room” (youmo bolan shi), a “music room” (shiting ziliao shi), and a qigong room (for a form of exercise thought to benefit body and mind). Each of these rooms is stocked with appropriate library materials and each is the venue for varied popular activities. In the music room are held seminars on drawing caricatures, exhibits of caricatures, displays of comic games, and drama appreciation nights. In less than a year after its establishment, activities held in this room drew some 20,000 attendees, mostly students and young workers. The music room is also the venue for numerous activities including music appreciation nights, karaoke classes, and performances on traditional Chinese musical instruments. Seminars are held in the qigong room. These attracted 1,400 attendees in less than a year after establishment of the room.
24. Xiong Wenwu, “Guanyu gaoxiao tushuguan duo tujing chuangshou de ji dian sikao (Thoughts about the multitudinous paths that university libraries can take to make money),” Gaoxiao Tushuguan Gongzuo, 1993–1: 17–18.
25. Gui, “Guanyu tushuguan jianli”.
26. Tan Fanghua, “Guanyu chuangshou yu gaoxiao tushuguan jingfei wenti de sikao (Thoughts concerning the financial problems of university libraries and making money),” Tushuguan Xuebao, 1995–5: 16.
27. Huang, “Zhuazhu jiyu”.
28. Chang Yuehua, “Fazhan xinxi chanye shi wo guo tushuguan shiye gaige de biyou zhi lu (The path of reform taken by our libraries must be that of information industry development).” Shichang Jingji yu Tushuguan Fuwu Yantaohui Lunwen Zhuan Ji, (Beijing: Guanli Xiandaihua Zazhi She, 1995?): 43.
29. Zhang Shuhua, “Shichang jingji xia: tushuguan duzhe fuwu gongzuo de kaituo yu yanshen (Starting and expanding new public library reader services in the market economy),” Tushuguan Xue Kan, 1995–2: 30.
30. Fang Caiyu, Bai Mingcheng, and Wang Xin write, “Libraries, during a time when the socialist market economy is progressing, should quickly take the path of service provision to the market economy, join the marketplace, and provide guaranteed information for the marketplace.” [Emphasis added.] [3: 23]. Forty–three percent of all public libraries in China operated one form or another of paid service in 1991. (Tan Xiangjin, “Tushuguan yu shichang jingji (Libraries and the market economy),” Zhongguo Tushuguan Xuebao, 1994–1: 26–32.)
31. Chen Yihong, “Ye lun tushuguan de youchang fuwu yu chuangshou (The theory of paid service and money making in libraries),” Sichuan Tushuguan Xue Kan, 1995–3: 19–22.
32. The library of the Inner Mongolia University of Teacher Education also operates outlets which sell books and stationery and thus earns about 12,000 yuan a year for the Library. (Interview with the staff of the Library, 14 April 1997.)
33. Tan Xiangjin, “Lun tushuguan chuangshou (The theory of money making in libraries),” Tushuguan 1989–3: 1.
34. Ye Ganlin, “Guanyu dangqian tushuguan youchang fuwu yu chuangshou de ji dian sikao (Some thoughts about paid service and money making in libraries of today),” Jiangxi Tushuguan Xue Kan, 1995–3: 8. Mr. Ye asserts that every profession in China today, including librarianship, is caught up in a mood of “One thousand boats compete to begin. One hundred barges vie for the current (qian fan jing fa; bai ge zheng liu).” (p. 7)
35. Long Xuntian, “Tushuguan youchang fuwu de sikao (Thoughts about paid service in libraries),” Gaoxiao Tushuguan Gongzuo, 1990–3: 18.
36. Tan, “Lun tushuguan chuangshou”: 3.
37. Wang Xinggou, “Gonggong tushuguan kaizhan jingying chuangshou de tantao (A discussion about public libraries undertaking money making activities),” Tushuguan Zazhi, 1993–1: 7.
38. Chang Peijun, “Tan youchang fuwu de tushu liudongzhan jianshe (Paid service and the establishment of traveling book collections),” Tushuguan Xue Kan, 1996–5: 36.
39. Xu Daping, “Wo guo gonggong tushuguan youchang fuwu de fazhan yu quxiang (The development and future of paid service in the public libraries of China),” Tushuguan Jianshe, 1994–2: 2–6.
40. Huang, “Zhuazhu jiyu”.
41. Fu, “Gaoxiao tushuguan”: 19.
42. Personal communication from Wu Zhichao, library of the Inner Mongolia University of Industry, 16 April 1997, and from personnel of the library of the Inner Mongolia University of Teacher Education, 14 April 1997. The former library receives 2.3 percent of its institution’s operating budget while the latter receives 2 percent.
43. Tan, “Gaige lu zai he fang”.
44. Some writers even use the phrase jingying chuangshou, creating additional chance for misunderstanding. Wang Xinggou, “Gonggong tushuguan kaizhan jingying chuangshou de tansuo (An investigation concerning undertaking money making in libraries),” Tushuguan Zazhi, 1993–1: 7–9).
45. Li Shuqin, “Gonggong tushuguan youchang fuwu de lilun yu shijian (The theory and practice of paid service in public libraries),” Shandong Tushuguan Ji Kan, 1989–3: 50.
46. Peng Daojie, “Tushuguan youchang fuwu yu chuangshou guanxi wenti tantao (A discussion of the relationship between paid service and money making in libraries),” Gaoxiao Tushuguan Gongzuo, 1995–2: 2.
47. Bai Xiaohuang, “Xinxi jingji zhong de tushuguan (Libraries in the information economy).” Paper presented at the conference “Shichang Jingji yu Tushuguan Fuwu” held in Dandong, Liaoning, 12–14 September 1994.
48. Gu Jianren, “Expanding information services: value–added library operations”. Paper presented at the 62nd IFLA General Conference, Beijing, August 1996, and reproduced in booklet 6 of the proceedings of the conference, pp. 99–103.
49. As quoted in Tan, “Lun tushuguan chuangshou”: 3.
50. Wenhua Bu, Caizheng Bu, and Guojia Gongshang Xingzheng Guanli Ju, “Wenhua shiye danwei kaizhan youchang fuwu he jingying huodong de zhanxing banfa (Temporary measures concerning the establishment of paid service and revenue–generating activities in cultural bodies),” Tushuguan ji Youguan Shukan Guanli Fagui Huilan (Beijing: Zhongguo Zhengfa Daxue Chubanshe, 1996): 516–18.
51. Xu, “Wo guo gonggong tushuguan”: 3.
52. Wenhua Bu, “Wenhua shiye”: 516.
53. Fu, “Gaoxiao tushuguan”: 17.
54. This confusion is even played out in the text of subsequent, related policies of governments below the national level. The Ministry of Culture of Liaoning Province, in its guidelines for libraries in that province during China's ninth five–year plan (1995–2000), had the following contradictory message about finance. “Public libraries are educational institutions that exist for public benefit and public well–being. They are operated by government. They are part of the non–marketplace culture, are not for–profit, and must rely totally on government financing. Government funds will always be the main source of finance for public libraries....At the same time as public libraries energetically seek out the most they can from governments, they must also support themselves. By engaging in business activities and paid information services they can realize economic benefit and supplement inadequate government budgets.” Liaoningsheng Wenhuating, “Liaoningsheng gonggong tushuguan shiye jiu wu fazhan guihua (Development plan for public libraries in Liaoning Province during the ninth five–year plan),” Tushuguan Xue Kan, 1995–5: 1–4.
55. Librarians are thus encouraged to go to great lengths to dress measures taken for economic reasons in the clothing of social value. We have, for example, the case of Qinghai Province Library that, in 1990, initiated a charge for loan of journals. This could be seen to have social benefit, we are told, because the policy made borrowing more convenient for the user. (Zhou Zhiqiang, “Tantan tushuguan youchang fuwu de kaizhan (Words about starting paid library service),” Qinghai Tushuguan, 1995–1: 11–12.)
56. Long, “Tushuguan youchang fuwu de sikao”: 19.
57. Ibid.: 19.
58. Jiang Yue and Wang Zhendong, “Liaoningsheng gonggong tushuguan shi zenyang wei jingji jianshe fuwu de (How public libraries in Liaoning Province serve economic construction),” Zhongguo Tushuguan Xuebao, 1994–5: 44.
59. Tao Hu, “Hubeisheng gonggong tushuguan wei keji xing nong fuwu de huigu yu sikao (Thoughts and recollections about the service rendered by public libraries in Huibei Province to ‘Awakening Agriculture Through Science and Technology’),” Nongye Tushu Qingbao Xue Kan, 1996–3: 10.
60. See Ma Zixin, “Gonggong tushuguan dui guancang wenxian xinxi de youxiao kaifa liyong (Beneficial usage by public libraries of the documents and information in their collections).” Paper presented at the conference “Shichang Jingji yu Tushuguan Fuwu” held in Dandong, Liaoning, 12–14 September 1994. Also see Huang Enzhu, “Wo guo tushuguan shiye de xin taidu (The new attitude of libraries in China),” a paper presented at the same conference.
61. Zhang Ping, “Chengli xibei wu sheng tushuguan xinxi zixun jituan gongsi gouxiang ji fenxi (The concept and analysis of establishing a library information advisory company in the five northwestern provinces),” Qinghai Tushuguan, 1995–1: 13.
62. We are told that the Dalian City library earns upwards of 90,000 yuan (8 yuan are approximately equal in value to 1 U.S. dollar) a year through sale of newsletters. Zeng Xuanying, “Gaoxiao tushuguan xinxi fuwu mianxiang shichang jingji de sikao (Thoughts about provision of university library information service to the market economy),” Jiangxi Tushuguan Xue Kan, 1994–3: 53.
63. Jiang Bing, “Dandong diqu gonggong tushuguan wei jingji jianshe fuwu de huigu yu zhanwang (A review of and prognosis for service to economic construction by the public libraries of the Dandong region),” Tushuguan Xue Kan, 1996–3: 34.
64. Zhang, “Zhongguo gonggong tushuguan”: 8.
65. Jiang, “Liaoningsheng gonggong tushuguan”: 43.
66. Ibid.: 44.
67. Huang, “Zhuazhu jiyu”: 16.
68. Zhang, “Zhongguo gonggong tushuguan”: 10.
69. Ma, “Gonggong tushuguan dui guancang wenxian”: 1.
70. Zhang, “Shichang jingji xia”: 30–33.
71. Zhou Jing and Pan Zhiyun, “Tu qi lianhe ti (Library/enterprise alliances).” Paper presented at the conference “Shichang Jingji yu Tushuguan Fuwu” held in Dandong, Liaoning, 12–14 September 1994: 2
72. Huang, “Wo guo tushuguan”: 5.
73. Jiang, “Liaoningsheng gonggong tushuguan”: 42.
74. Tao, “Hubeisheng gonggong tushuguan”: 9.
75. Zhang, “Shichang jingji xia”: 30–32.
76. Zhang, “Zhongguo gonggong tushuguan wei nongye jingji”: 5–6.
77. Jin Xiaoming and Xie Kunsheng state that personal experience with traveling exhibits indicates that farmers want to see library material that is simple and practical, that fits into their frame of experience, that is visible, and that is timely. Jin Xiaoming and Xie Kunsheng, “Lun shichang jingji xingshi xia tushuguan wei nongcun jingji jianshe fuwu quxiang (Theorizing about library service to rural economic expansion in the market economy).” Paper presented at the conference “Shichang Jingji Tushuguan Fuwu” held in Dandong, Liaoning, 12–14 September 1994.
78. Teng, “Lun Jiangsu diqu gonggong tushuguan”: 2.
79. Personal communication of Dong Tingsong, Director of the library of Hehai University, Nanjing, 7 January 1997, and Ma Jinchuan, Assistant Director of the library of Nanjing University, 10 January 1997.
80. Zhang, “Chengli xibei wu sheng”: 13.
81. Li Donghong and Wang Li, “Guanyu tushuguan wei shichang jingji fuwu de sikao (Thoughts about library service to the market economy),” Tushuguan Xue Kan, 1993–4: 11–12.
82. Huang, “Zhuazhu jiyu”.
83. Zeng Xuanying, “Gaoxiao tushuguan xinxi fuwu mianxiang shichang jingji de sikao (Thoughts about provision of university library information service to the market economy),” Jiangxi Tushuguan Xue Kan, 1994–3: 51–53.
84. Qiao Yiping, “Guanyu tushuguan youchang fuwu wenti xiao yi (Humble opinions concerning questions about paid service in libraries),” Hebei Tu Yuan, 1995–2: 60.
85. Tan, “Gaige lu zai he fang”.
86. The Nanjing Library, for example, involves these four departments in the provision of service to the market economy: Information, Periodicals, Reading, and Conservation. The Jinling Library of Nanjing entrusts that service to the following three departments: Periodicals, Scientific and Technical Information, and Reference and Bibliography.
87. Examples include the Shanghai Wenxing District Library Number 1 “Shanghai Information Age Company (Shanghai Shidai Xinxi Gongsi),” and the Sichuan Provincial Library’s “Sichuan Knowledge Resources Development Company (Sichuan Zhili Ziyuan Gongsi).”
88. Li Shuqin, “Gonggong tushuguan youchang fuwu de lilun yu shijian (The theory and practice of paid service in public libraries),” Shandong Tushuguan Ji Kan, 1989–3: 50–52.
89. Dong Yan, “Tushuguan xinxi chanpin de shangpin hua yu shichang kaituo" (Cracking the marketplace and the commodification of library information products).” Paper presented at the conference “Shichang Jingji yu Tushuguan Fuwu” held in Dandong, Liaoning, 12–14 September 1994: 12.
90. Personal communication from staff of the Inner Mongolia University of Agriculture and Animal Husbandry, 14 April 1997.
91. Wang, “Gonggong tushuguan kaizhan”.
92. Tan, “Lun tushuguan chuangshou”: 1.
93. Wang Cuihua, “Tushuguan yu shichang Jingji (Libraries and the market economy),” Shandong Tushuguan Ji Kan, 1995–2: 24–28.
94. Wang Haiming, Chai Chunqing, and Wang Bing, “Shi xi shichang jingji dui tushuguan shiye de y ingxiang (An attempt to analyze the effect of the market economy on libraries),” Daxue Tushuguan Xuebao, 1995–3: 5–8.
95. Ma, “Gonggong tushuguan dui guancang”.
About the author
Richard D. Ellis is Reference Librarian, D.S. Woods Education Library, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada