Communicating Social Responsibility:a Empirical Analysis Of Public Library Websites In China And The United States

Since the "social responsibility" had been proposed, it has been given extensive and high attention. Public libraries undertake to promote the development of society, enhance the people’s ideological and moral cultivation and promote human progress, because libraries have the feature of providing equal services. Under the background of the information age, public libraries should be responsible for improving the ability to fulfill their social responsibilities. But now our research is still in the exploratory stage, the meaning and content of social responsibility for the library can not be defined clearly, How to improve the regulatory system of social responsibility for the library does not reach a conclusion. Therefore, the study explores that our libraries how to improve service capabilities of social responsibility, to promote the sustainable development of our libraries. So, this study has very important theoretical and practical value.This study therefore investigates how public libraries as information services organizations present their goals, define their roles, and I put forward to the understanding of the meaning and content of social responsibility for the library. Content analysis was performed on 20 public library websites to identify types of social responsibility, intended audience, area of presentation and manifestations. Then focusing on these four areas to contrast between the U.S. and China, try to find gaps and analyze the causes. It is hoped that the public libraries under investigation in this study can become the role model in promoting social responsibility and engagement.The first chapter is an introduction focusing on the background, purposes, methods and the innovated points of the research.Chapter Ⅱ is an introduction of literature review at home and abroad. This section is divided into three parts, the first part briefly describes the research status of library’s social responsibility in the foreign countries. The second part mainly describes the meaning, content, strategy and other issues of libraries’ social responsibility, analyzes the research status and development trend. The last part briefly introduces the view of mine.Chapter III is the empirical part. As the important part of this article, content analysis was performed on 20 public library websites to identify types of social responsibility, intended audience, area of presentation and manifestations. Then focusing on these four areas to contrast, try to find gaps between the USA and China and analyze the causes.Chapter IV is the suggestions for improvement. This part proposes countermeasures and proposals about improving the ability to fulfill our social responsibilities today, including public libraries’ self-construction, government supervision and management and the public’s participation.Chapter V is the summary section. As a concluding summary of the full text, this part points out the shortcomings and the future direction of the study.