Directions of higher library education modernization in China

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to explore the experience and to identify the best practices for modernizing the content and organizational structure of multilevel training of librarians in China.
 The methodology. The study has used a systematic approach, which allowed to consider all components of the Chinese higher education in the specialties “Library, Archive and Information Science”, to establish the continuity of educational levels of librarians, to find out the factors determining the training system’s modernization. There was carried out comparative and content analysis of the Bachelor’s, Master’s and Doctoral higher education levels educational programs, implemented by Chinese universities in the specialty “Library Science”, “Information Management and Information Systems”. This allowed to determine the general and the specifics of the Information Field Science training in the People’s Republic of China (PRC), to establish interdisciplinarity educational components, to substantiate the objective strengthening of the information component in the content of higher education in library science.
 The results. The article has looked into the content and structure of 227 different levels educational programs (EP) of the information specialists training, with 41% of them being the Bachelor’s level EP, 49% — Master’s, and 9% — Educational-Scientific Programs (ESP) for the Doctor of Management degree (an equivalent to the Doctor of Philosophy) in Information Sciences, provided in 108 universities in China. There were clarified the EP peculiarities: about 40% of them are programs dedicated to Information Management and Information Systems (Program in Information Management & Information Systems); 35% — EP in Library Science (Program in Library Science); 31.5% — EP in Archive Science (Program in Archive Science). In terms of content, most EPs are interdisciplinary, which is due to the national information infrastructure digitalization and the focus of its components to support the basic technological processes of the information management life cycle. It is established that Chinese universities adhere to the IFLA Guidelines for Professional Library and Information Science (LIS) Educational Programs.
 The scientific topicality. It is substantiated that in the digital information market the content of modern librarian training should be updated with such relevant interdisciplinary educational components as: “Principles of competitive intelligence and artificial intelligence”, “Electronic library and consolidated information management”, “Intelligent control systems”, “Information security systems”, “Economics of Management and Information Industry”, “Methods of data mining”, “Knowledge extraction and management”, “Analysis and design of information systems”.
 The practical significance. Ukrainian institutions of higher education when improving educational programs in the can use the study results. Addressing to the best foreign practices of the library specialists training will allow increasing their competitiveness in the world information market and promoting better efficiency of the Ukrainian libraries work in the conditions of the society digitalization.