Discussion on Joint Council Management Mode of Archives and Library

Abstract

In the report of 18 th Third Plenary Session of Central Committee of the Party, the proposal of joint council for public libraries, museums, cultural centers and science museums, etc., has been put forward. Based on the management and cooperation actuality of archives and libraries, this paper has analyzed the essence, characteristics and implementation approaches of the joint council management mode of archives and libraries, and has provided the reference for reform of public benefit institutions. Background for Establishing Joint Council of Archives and Libraries In the report of 18 th Third Plenary Session of Central Committee of the Party, it has pointed out: Explicit the function location of different cultural and public institutions; construct the corporate governance structure and perfect the performance evaluation mechanism. Promote the construction of joint council management for public libraries, museums, cultural centers and science museums, and attract relevant representatives, professionals and citizens participating in the management. It is an important measurement to improve the mechanism innovation and the must to deepen the reform of our cultural and public institutions. Municipal Party committee and government have issued the measurement: Seven Specific Reform Proposal for Innovation and Reform of Public Institution Mechanism (2007), therein the regulation: Suggestion on Construction and Perfection Implementation of Corporate Governance Structure of Public Institutions. The regulation has pointed out to implement mechanism of council among public institutions including libraries. The project of sharing national culture and information resources, launched by Ministry of Culture and Ministry of Finance in 2002, has integrated the cultural information resources of libraries, archives and museums and realized the share of cultural information among the nation. Additionally, many regional projects have promoted the integration and processing of cultural information resources to provide services to publics via Internet, through the cooperation with local libraries, archives and museums. With the increase of national economy and the fast accumulation of material wealth over the society, public requires higher level of cultural consumption. Archives and libraries, as the cultural institutions providing the cultural information resources to public, are required to provide the public with fruitful resources and the fast accesses to reach these resources. At this stage, the best approach for archives and libraries is to cooperate together deeply and broadly, so that they can have better integration on cultural resources and provide optimized services. However, the supervised department of archives is National Archive Bureau, while that of libraries is Ministry of Culture. The two departments are belonging to different administrations respectively and between the upper administrations, there is lack of scientific and rational cooperation mechanism. Even via the existing technical approach to share the resources, contribution of digital platform, the problems have been found for period, such as redundant resource construction and different functions of resources carriers. Therefore, it is necessary to establish a joint management organization of archives and libraries, which can project the development globally and manage archives and libraries holistically. It will promote the cooperation of archives and libraries, while make efficient use of personnel and expense to obtain more effective results. Under contemporary situation, it is the requirements to bring in council management of archives and libraries to cope with the public institution reform, to follow up the transform of government functions, and to establish and perfect the corporate governance