Evaluation Of Public Library Service Ability Based On Niche Theory

Public libraries are legally established social service agencies to deliver non-discriminatory public cultural services for all the communities. They are an important way for people to obtain knowledge and information, but also play a role of regulating social distribution of knowledge and information and maintaining social fairness and justice. Public libraries of China originated in the library buildings. Library automation and electronic database resources continue to play a role in our public library construction from 1990s. It greatly expanded the services of public libraries and enhanced the quality of public library services. However, disparities in public library services are still very obvious from a national perspective. The CPC Central Committee and State Council issued the view of speeding up the construction of modern public cultural service system and the guidelines for the national basic public cultural services (2015-2020). Deployment of accelerating the construction of modern public cultural service system, promoting the standardization and equalization of basic public cultural services and protecting people’s basic cultural rights was made in these two files. Public libraries are an important part of modern public cultural service system. The expansion of service content and the improvement of service quality are very essential in the process of constructing the public cultural service system.An ecological niche refers to an ecosystem that organisms mutually contact and interact to occupy a certain position in the ecological system and display the corresponding function and role. With the continuous expansion and segmentation of niche concept and the deepening of niche theories, niche theories and methods have been used widely not only in the field of natural science, but also in various research fields of social science.Based on a large number of literature investigations, relevant researches of library evaluation at home and abroad are summarized and the definition of ecological niches and the application of related theories are introduced. Starting from the perspective of ecological niches we proposed the ecological niche of public library service ability. Then the characteristics of public library service ability niches different from the biological niches in natural ecosystem are analyzed according to the characteristics of public libraries. The evaluation index system of public library service ability we constructed in this paper provides a method and basis for the correct evaluation of public library services. Based on this evaluation system public library service capability in various regions of our country is evaluated. Then the evaluation result is systematically analyzed and countermeasures are proposed. The main conclusions of this paper are as follows:(1) the gap on public library service ability among regions of our country is large and there is a significant correlation with economic development in the region; (2) the gap on public library service ability not only in the investment of resources, but also in the output of services and user’s involvement; (3) the ecological niche of public library service ability is initiative, dynamic and non-continuous.This paper introduces niche theories into the evaluation of public library services and broadens the visions and ideas of public library researches. Applications of niche theories in the evaluation of China’s public library service ability enrich and develop the theoretical system of public library service evaluation. The statuses of public library services get better understand and some guidance and references for the optimization of public library services are provided by evaluating the ability of China’s public library services.The innovation of this paper lies in using the idea of ecological niches to evaluate the ability of public library services, enriching and developing the theories and methods of library evaluation. We analyze the difference between biological niches in natural ecosystem and niches in social system and niche theories will get better use in social science research.