The Evaluation And Analysis Of Shanghai District Public Library Efficiency Based On Superefficiency DEA And Tobit Model

The fast development of society challenges the development of public libraries. These years, amounts of research work has been done to discuss the future direction of public libraries. What's more, Chinese government has already adopted some regulations on public products. Among these, evaluation of the efficiency of public libraries is certain to be a hot topic.Literature analysis method and empirical method are used in the paper for qualitative and quantitative analysis of public library efficiency and influencing factors.At first, the necessity of research on public libraries and some related concepts are discussed and defined in the paper. Based on the research work of former researchers, an efficiency evaluation system of public libraries is put forward in the paper, of which the input indexes include staff, the total collections, expenditure, structure area and the seats of the reading room while the output indexes include the circulation and the number of borrowed books.And the efficiencies of 21 district public libraries in Shanghai are analyzed based on the Superefficiency Dea and Tobit Model. The result shows that, Hongkou Quyang Library, Minhang Library, Pudong New Area Library, Luwan Library, Putuo Library and Fengxian Library have reached the optimal efficiency with Hongkou Quyang Library getting the superefficiecy score of 1.77, which is the highest among Shanghai district libraries. Changning Library, Yangpu Yanji Library, Yangpu Library, Pudong New Chuansha Library and Jinshan Library are effective in skills not in scales while the rest district libraries are neither skills effective nor scales effective. Secondly, Yangpu Yanji Library, Pudong Lujiazui Library, Pudong New Chuansha Library, Jinshan Library and Songjiang Library are in the stage of increasing scales while Huangpu Library, Xuhui Library, Changning Library, Zhabei Library, Hongkou Library, Yangpu Library, etc., on the other hand, are in the stage of decreasing scales. Furthermore, the influencing factors of public library efficiency are recognized by Tobit Model. It is reported that the density of district population and financial allocation contribute greatly to the district public library, while the resources of public library, the profession level of staff, activities hold for readers and economic value added of the district put little influence to the efficiency of the library, which indicates the remarkable difference between urban and suburban public libraries and the vital part of financial allocation in the development of Shanghai district public libraries. According to the result, the paper takes Pudong Library, Jinshan Library and Xuhui Library as examples, discussing the present situation of them and putting forward some related suggestions.In the end, the paper put forward four suggestions aiming at improving the current situation of Shanghai district public libraries which include amplifying the input of financial allocation, optimizing the allocation of resources, establishing governance structure and setting up evaluation system.