Research On The Mode Of Children’s Reading Promotion Of Public Library In China

In recent years, children’s reading behavior has been stressed increasingly by the government, society and the family, and the children’s reading promotion activities in the whole country gain more popularity and continue to increase. In this movement, public libraries play a significant role on children’s reading promotion. However, the existing theoretical research on the promotion of children’s reading is mostly fragmented details of reading experiences, lacking scientific theories, and it can not help public libraries to improve their reading promotion. This study aims at building children’s reading promotion mode of public libraries and providing guidance to children’s reading promotion and also enriching the theory of library science.The study is designed with three stages of investigation. The first stage explores the status of children’s reading, including their reading interest and needs, the status of reading promotion of public libraries, their awareness and response of children’s reading problems, based on the methods of literature review, surveys, questionnaires and other research methods. The second stage introduces multi-disciplinary theories such as strategic management theory, marketing theory, child development theory, reading theory, to build the new mode of children’s reading promotion of public libraries and revise it through expert interviews. The third stage proposes the strategies of children’s reading promotion from perspectives of the state, local government and public library.The study concludes in four areas based on theoretical research and practical analysis. Firstly, public libraries should enhance children’s reading promotion. Though children have the great interest in reading, their reading needs are not fully met. There is significant difference in urban and rural areas on children’s reading resources and environment. The role of teachers and parents to guide children needs to be strengthened. Public libraries should provide effective guidance and help for children to read. Secondly, public libraries should adopt effective mode of children’s reading promotion. There exist many problems in reading promotion of public library, such as not covering all ages, ignoring infant children, not benefiting the entire region, low children’s awareness of the public library and the work ability of staff on promotion remaining to improve.There is an imbalance on the geographical distribution and level of development of public libraries to promote reading for children. The economically developed regions have an advantage over the less developed regions to promote children’s reading on frequency, scope of coverage, and other activities. Provincial libraries, municipal libraries have better facilities and resources than county libraries, township libraries, which has brought differences to promote the development of children’s reading. Thirdly, the reading practice of children requires specialized theory. The way of reading promotion of public libraries is homogeneous, without paying attention to long-term planning and the lessons learned, lack of promotion strategies and practical analysis of local children. This study proposes a new mode of children’s reading promotion of public libraries on the ground of theoretical and empirical research. Through the relative children’s theories and questionnaire survey, expert interviews, the research highlights the importance of the strategic planning, marketing, guides and manuals on children’s reading promotion. Fourthly, it’s necessary to make the policy on children’s reading promotion of public libraries. This study proposes three suggestions on reading promotion, including building national strategies, strengthening the implementation of the rights of children to read by laws and regulations from local government, and improving staff team with cooperation from public libraries.Firstly, this study introduces of the theory of multi-disciplinary, including strategic planning theory, marketing theory, child development theory, reading theory, and gaining a broad perspective to build a new children’s reading model. Secondly, this study proposes a new mode of children’s reading promotion, which can provide a guide to public libraries about how to promote the children’s reading. The research thirdly proposes four stages of children’s reading promotion of public libraries:period of importing the service, shaping the image, strengthening the image and branding. Public libraries can take appropriate measures according the stages above.