Research On The Service Of The Public Libraries In Hefei City For The Disadvantaged Groups

As the pace of information technology has been accelerating, the information gap has become increasingly prominent, which brings information-vulnerable groups. Nowadays, in this information age, the information explosion and the information disorder happen everywhere. Citizens enjoy public services mostly through information. However, information-vulnerable groups have difficulty in getting and using information so that they are dropping to the bottom of the society. What’s more, information-vulnerable groups do not play a part in social harmony and stability. To promote economic development and maintain social stability, the government needs to mobilize all the people in our society to understand the need of information-vulnerable groups, and help them improve the position. The public library, as a nonprofit cultural institution, not only has the mission to serve citizens equally, but also has the obligation to offer the public literature resources equally. Also, it’s its duty to improve the spiritual and cultural life, enjoy the information service and guarantee the cultural rights for vulnerable groups.This thesis studies the specific situation of information services for information-vulnerable groups in Hefei. After analyzing and summarizing related researches at home and abroad, the writer invited some target population doing the questionnaire survey and interviewed several staff of three Hefei public libraries and some of information-vulnerable groups. Then the writer analyzed the problems and limiting factors of service for information-vulnerable groups from the public libraries in the center based on the summary of survey data. Measures that public libraries should improve the service for information-vulnerable groups are put forward finally.This thesis is divided into five chapters:The first part briefly introduces the background and problems, purpose and significance, arrangement and details of the research.The second part mainly analyzes the current situation of the researches at home and abroad. Not only are the definition, traits and the classification of information-vulnerable groups as well as measures to serve them all over the world introduced, but the thesis also introduces related concepts and service patterns.The third part describes the whole process of the survey through the people taking part in it and the choice of measures and problems analyzed from data of questionnaire and interviews, such as the small collection of resources, the lack of specialized information services, the service system for information-vulnerable groups, incomprehensive service objects, the differences, the low overall quality of public library staff and so on. It also includes what influences information-vulnerable groups to use public libraries.In the fourth part, it proposes the measures from the government, public libraries and information-vulnerable groups after analyzing the problems of service for them.The fifth part of the thesis summarizes the research result and shortcomings, and prospect the research on service for information-vulnerable groups from public libraries as well.