Developing Librarianship in China, 1949-1989

During the past 40 years China's library science has undergone important development. The paper deals with areas of service and functions developed: construction and distribution of documentation sources; bibliographic control; construction of an information retrieval language; standards in documentation; modernization of library technology and methods; service to reader and user research; education for library and information science; research in library science and international academic exchange programmes. Library science in China has progressed greatly since the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949. By the end of 1988 there were 350,000 libraries of all types within the country, some 84 times more than in 1949; monograph holdings of books reached 210,000,000, 60 times those of 1949.