The Renaming of Library Schools in China and the Effects

The names of library schools were changed from library science to library and information science in the mid-1980s, and to information management a decade later. Because many schools of former library and information science dropped "library" from their titles, there are now less than 20 schools of library science, and there are only about 1,000 graduate students of library science every year. These graduates cannot fill the vacancies for positions in the 2,440 public libraries, 1,158 academic libraries and 4,500 special libraries nationwide. This paper analyzes the context surrounding the renaming, discusses the effects it caused in LIS education - including educational objectives, curriculum system, teachers' qualifications and employment market - and describes briefly the prospects in LIS education in China.