The Competitive Research On Chinese And American Public Libraries Services For Disadvantaged Groups

China has made great progress through the economic system reform and social transformation. But at the same time, the disadvantaged groups such as the city peasant workers, laid-off workers, unemployment and retiree become one kind of new social problems. Due to various reasons, vulnerable groups got a disadvantageous position in political, economic and cultural. Their social status is not high and they can not be treated fairly. Because they have got too much pressure in the spirit and psychology, they become one of the unsafe factors for the society. Public library is a kind of social welfare institutions funded by the government, and it is one part of our public cultural undertakings. Public libraries should provide information services, protect information equity and do something to narrow the information gap. The fundamental reasons that make people became part of the vulnerable groups is that they cannot got and make use of the information effectively. The public library has the ability and they also have to participate in the service of vulnerable groups. This paper introduces the history that public library provide services to the disadvantaged groups in Chinese and American. And then according to their respective service features, we compared to both, and then get the gap between them. And finally puts forward concrete suggestions. There are four chapters in this paper.The first chapter introduces the present research situation both at home and abroad, innovation, research significance and research method of the theme and so on. The second part describes the characteristics of disadvantaged groups and disadvantaged service. The third chapter summarizes the development history and the current situation of the disadvantaged service in American and Chinese public libraries. Then it makes a comparison of the public library services for the disadvantaged groups on service object, service concept,service content and fund-raising means between in America and in China. At last it summarizes the similarities and differences of disadvantaged service in public libraries between China and America. The fourth chapter expounds revelation to China from the disadvantaged service in public libraries of America. And then proposes some suggestions for disadvantaged service in public libraries of China.