On The Building And Development Of Libraries In China's Research Universities

Research universities are one of the important factors that affect a nation's core competitive power. The libraries in research universities are academic units that support instructional and research activities, and have an impact on the building and development of the universities. Therefore, the development goals of libraries should be aligned with the goals of their research universities. The libraries in the U.S. research universities have fairly long histories, and have a lot of experiences and success cases that we could learn and borrow. Using the theories in higher education and library and information sciences, and through comparative and case analyses, this thesis studies the building and development of libraries in China's research universities with focus on two areas: resource development and client service. This study suggests that resource development of the libraries in research universities should be strictly directed to supporting the academic program development and the universities' development goals: expediting digital library construction; perfecting subject librarian system; advancing personal information services; realizeing information resources sharing, "the needs for the priorities should be met even at the expense of any non-priorities". The feature of libraries in research universities is academic, investigative, digital, special, individual and intellectual. That means libraries in research universities carry such a feature that the libraries, based on instructional and research needs and relying on digital and network informational resources, offer in-depth and personal information services for academic and research activities.