A Study Of Developing Models Of Information Commons

Information Commons (IC), an adjustment and revolution of traditional library, is a new service model emerged in the middle and late 1990's abroad. In today's environment of "Web is the King", users have changed greatly in their information service needs and how to use the library. As a result, they urge the library to provide an one-stop service center to identify, retrieve, store, process and utilize the information. Besides, there is an urgent need for a shared learning and research space to fit changes of the learning mode. In the new environment, Information Commons meets the requirements of service innovation and extension of the traditional library. Information Commons provides its users with a comprehensive, shared, and dynamic development of information services by re-organizing the physical space and library service model oriented by the users' demands.This paper discus some important issues associated with implementing IC in libraries from both theory and practice. Theoretically, the paper looks at the evolution from traditional library to Information Commons, the research development of IC in China and abroad. From the status quo of the research, this paper reduces the definition, characteristics and core concepts of the IC, and put forward the structure model of a typical IC. In the practical part, the practical development of IC in China and abroad, the construction mode and operational framework of IC are discussed.The paper, based on brief introduction to the concept, origin and evolution of IC, analyzes the propulsive elements of IC, and then expounds the meanings, definition, characteristics of IC. Inherited the three-tier structure of view (physical layer, virtual layer and support layer), paper introduce the perspective of the three core elements (space, resources and services), bring forward the typical structure model of IC. From this point, paper analyzes the three elements specifically. In the part of service model, the paper analyzes the evolution process of IC and compares different kinds of IC service models in characteristics.Practically, the paper introduces two kinds of construction mode of IC, and proposes some issues to be considered and solved in 5 facets after the construction of Information Commons.