Comparative Research On Library And Information Science Education Between China And America

China's LIS education has acquired obvious achievements during the last half a century and contributed greatly to the construction and development of LIS undertakings. However, with the immense changes in the whole social economy and technical environment, China's LIS education is experiencing unprecedented crises and challenges. There are emerging pressures on not only enrolment, employment but also teachers' building and courses' designing. America's LIS education also faced and experienced these pressures. As a nation with the richest experiences in LIS education, America's LIS education experiences can inspire the development of LIS education of China. To construct the first-class LIS education in 21st, China's LIS education has to absorb the essences of America's and use them to reform itself. Rested on this point, this paper will give a comparative study on LIS education between China and America. Through this study we can find out the similarities and dissimilarities of the two countries, know the weakness of China's LIS education and learn some lessons from America's. Finally, this paper will reconstruct the LIS education of China, in order to provide some reference resources to China's universities, which aim to develop first-class LIS education in the new millennium.This paper comprises four sections.In the first section, the paper will give a review of the histories of the two countries' LIS education and summarize the general situations and characteristicsduring three different periods of the history. According to this analysis, it will be easy to find out that there are some similarities in LIS education's rising, flourishing, declining and reforming between the two countries. These similarities are the foundation of the comparative study.In the second section, this paper will compare two countries' LIS education from five aspects, including the properties and aims of education, levels and enrolments, LIS curriculums, teachers, continuing education. Rested on this comparison, the paper will summarize the similarities and dissimilarities of the two countries' LIS education.In the third section, this paper will find out the weakness of LIS education of China and lessons from America's LIS education.In the last section, this paper will reconstruct the LIS education of China in the new millennium. Firstly, the paper will make clear of the challenges of China's LIS education today. Then, the paper will address the characteristics in new millennium. Last, it will reconstruct the LIS education of China in four aspects, including the mode of education, curriculum designing, education protecting system, and management of LIS Schools.