Comparative Study On The Competence Of Agricultural Libraries

Agricultural library is a center for agricultural information and knowledge and is the product ofsocial and historical development. After years of development, agricultural library has made remarkablechanges and also achieved fruitful research results. Under the background of information technologyand knowledge-based economy, agricultural library’s research areas have been gradually expanding anddeepening, its research influences and the level of providing social services has also been substantialincreased. In the context of the information environment, agricultural library is facing new opportunitiesand challenges. How to maintain, cultivate and improve competitiveness of agricultural library, and toseek more room for development is a question which must be considered and answered. The study ofagricultural libraries competitiveness has become an important issue accompanying process ofcontinuous improvement in agricultural library.Using the theories and methods of bibliometrics, competitive intelligence and informationmanagement, this paper conduct a statistical analysis on library competences with the scope in Web ofScience and CNKI databases both in China and abroad. Using the lately published10years articles onlibrary competence and its citations as scientific indicators to evaluate the quality of papers. Use themethods based on the Using quantitative analysis method and information visualization technology toreveals the status-quo and development trends of library competence from a bibliometrics perspective.Analysis library competence influential papers, academic leaders, authoritative journals, the subjectsinvolved, research focus and research frontier in the field. Using text-mining technology to analyz thebasic structure of the literature distribution from time and space, research institutions, highly yield termsfrequency, research hotspots.Use Analytic Hierarchy Process method(AHP) and Data Envelopment Analysis method(DEA) to evaluate agricultural library competences respectively. Building agricultural library competenceevaluation model using AHP method. In the target layer, set information resource, human resources,social service capability, information construction, sscientific research output and social influence ascompetence indicators and17criteria layer indicators to evaluate the competences of11agriculturallibraries. Using Data Envelopment Analysis method to12domestic and foreign agricultural libraries toevaluate their competences. Use the CCR models as well as the BBC model for computational analysis,compare the efficiency of the competence indicators of each agricultural libraryies. Compare andanalyze the input redundancy and output deficiency in the12agricultural library. Use thesuper-efficiency method for the futher sorting of the agricultural library competences and provides theimproved method for the optimization of input and output indicators.Using the benchmarking method to evaluate the competitiveness of professional agriculturallibraris. The paper take four national professional Agricultural Library, namely China NationalAgricultural Library, U.S. National Agricultural Library, Agricultural Documentation and InformationCenter of the Hungarian and Poland Central Agricultural Library to evaluate their competence.Benchmarking areas are mainly set on the affiliations of the four agricultural professional libraries, theconstruction of paper information resources as well as electronic information resources, their types ofbasic services, network information services, value-added services as well as the subject theme-basedservices and finally the professional information systems were compared. It also analyze the differencesof policies of the four professional agricultual libraries.Use the SWOT analysis method to analyze the advantages and disadvantages of professionalagricultural library. According to the SWOT analysis of advantages, disadvantages, opportunities andthreats combination, it provides SO strategy, WO strategy, ST strategy and WT strategy.Use Key Success Factors Method to do an in-depth analysis of agricultural library’s competitive advantages. Take the U.S. National Agricultural Library as an example to study its competitiveadvantages including their optimizing structure of resources, unique services, use of informationtechnology, cooperation, physical infrastructure and disaster recovery in order for other agriculturallibraries to learn from it in the fierce competition. Through using Porter’s five forces model, the paperdo a specific analysis on agricultural library development constraints. Through the analysis of the threatof potential entrants, the threat of replacement, the threat from the user, the bargaining power ofsuppliers, as well as existing competitors, the paper make a wholesomely analyzes to the developingconstraints of agricultural library.Finally, summarize the full text context and present research proposals including using informationtechnology to strengthen agricultural library service capabilities, strengthen the studying of agriculturallibrary users’ information needs, strengthen the capabilities in providing information services,strengthen the support in doing research, impose the using of agricultural library funds efficiently,training outstanding agricultural librarians and improve building the core value as the developmentstrategies.