The article is devoted to determining the current state of project activities on the creation of libraries as components of China's information infrastructure. In this study we have analyzed the state of project activities in library and information affairs, 15 of the most powerful projects on creating China's digital infrastructure. It was determined that the project activities of document and information institutions of the People's Republic of China are built on the basis of NCB (National Competence Baseline) - a national standard that takes into account the cultural aspects of an individual country. It was established: the strategies for deploying project activities are aimed at digitization, joint acquisition and use of information resources, implementation of powerful projects for creating a digital communication environment. Emphasis is placed on the need to strengthen the cognitive component, the formation of branch knowledge networks and the system of service access to them.
Program and project activity is one of the main conditions for the development of society in general, and the document and information sphere in particular. The existence of educational, scientific, social, political, and economic projects indicates the orientation of society (both its economic and sociocultural spheres) on the constant search, implementation, and use of new things. Currently, there is an active process of forming a digital information space, in which document and information institutions play an important role. The forms and methods of their effective functioning in a hyperdynamic and unpredictable information environment require additional theoretical understanding. The PRC has gained some experience in the organization of work on the development and implementation of global projects, which can be useful for Ukraine. Moreover, their scale, integrity, complexity of content and implementation conditions have been growing significantly recently and require the use of innovative management mechanisms for this activity.
Chinese libraries are actively adapting the technologies of project activities to form a digital information space. Their general characteristic is a rapid change in the environment and the need to take into account the influence of external factors; the importance of professional mastery of technical and technological aspects of project management and project portfolios; involvement of highly qualified specialists – project managers in project management. An important condition for an effective project is behavioral competence, motivation and leadership, which are a necessary additional component to the technical knowledge and experience of a project manager.
The analysis of the latest research and publications shows that the problems of the project activities
of libraries of the People’s Republic of China are being investigated in different directions. The authors
highlight the issue of classical project management, justify the expediency and methods of project
activity, consider its application in the information and library field mainly from the point of view of
implementation of the social and communicative function by libraries and within the framework of the
social partnership model, which provides for “exchange of information, dialogic communication, taking
into account its effectiveness, the presence of a communication reaction of the recipient, a change in
the roles of the communicator and the recipient, when the initiative in the interaction passes from one
to the other”. The current state and leading directions of project activities of academic libraries in China
are reflected by leading specialists of the Sun Yatsen State Research University Qiong Tang, Yin Xie
and Rina Su [
The article offers a study of the current state of project activities in the library field at the stage of forming of the extensive information space of the digital society and the knowledge society on the example of the People’s Republic of China.
The purpose of the article: to investigate the state and determine the features of the project activities of libraries in China.
This article is aimed at solving a scientific problem associated with a certain contradiction between the considerable experience gained in the PRC regarding the provision of effective project activities in the direction of creating a socio-communication information space, a powerful system of document and information institutions that are at a sufficiently high level of technical and technological, material and service development and fragmented coverage of their work experience in scientific publications.
In libraries, as the world’s leading document and information institutions, interest in program and project activities began to form in the late 1970s and early 1980s of the XX century. It is the time that can be defined as the first stage of program and project development of document and information institutions. At this stage, the world experience of digitizing library collections and the development of electronic libraries began. A special feature of this stage is the transition from public initiatives for the digitization, archiving and distribution of cultural works to the initiation of national programs for the digitization of documents.
The first successful projects that were founded during this period were: the Gutenberg electronic library, “the American Memory” – electronic archive of the American national documentary memory, and the National Digital Library Program (USA). Experience in the application of project management technologies was implemented in such multimedia cultural and educational projects, as “Memory of Spain”, “Memory of the World”, SCRAN (Scottish Cultural Heritage Resource Network for the museums, archives and libraries resources support), “German Library” and many others.
The result of the first stage of program and project development of digital libraries is the deployment
and implementation of large-scale national programs: France (Gallica), Great Britain (Elib), Germany
(Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek), Denmark (Denmark’s Electronic Research Library, DEFF), Latvia
(Latvijas Nacionālās digitālās bibliotēkas), Lithuania (E-library.lt), Finland (FinLib), Canada
(Canadiana), Georgia (Digital Library of Georgia), the Philippines (Philippine eLib Project), Japan
(National Diet Library), China (National Library of China), Australia (Digital Collections National
Library of Australia), Russia (Docusfera), Poland (National Digital Library Polona), Argentina
(Trapalanda), Spain (Hispanica), Japan (Kokuritsu Kokkai Toshokan) and other foreign countries [
At the second stage (the 90s of the XX century – 2010), global program and project activities
developed within the framework of the introduction of corporate infrastructure and network formats of
library projects. At this stage, the deployment of such powerful international projects for the
preservation and provision of access to national cultural document and information resources as
“Europiana”, “World Digital Library”, “Golden Collection of Eurasia”, “European Electronic Library”,
which initiated “presentation of the entire ethnic and national diversity of world culture on a single
technological basis” [
Project activities of libraries are aimed at solving a number of tasks: construction of premises and
structures, creation of information products and services, digital information resources at the
international, national, regional and local levels; formation of digital collections of cultural and
scientific heritage; development of digital and electronic library projects. It can be claimed that
recognition of these areas of activity as projects is possible if they meet certain criteria defined in the
ISO 10006 standards, according to which projects have the following features: they are unique,
unrepeatable stages consisting of processes and actions; have certain degrees of risk and uncertainty;
the cost and required resources are clearly indicated. Personnel for the implementation of the project
may be accepted into the organization for the duration of the project. The development of the project
can be quite long, and the project can be changed over time under the influence of internal and external
factors [
The above-mentioned features of the project activity allow us to define it as an effective tool for the modernization of libraries, which is actively used in the practice of forming an information environment. These processes are actualized under the influence of increasing the pace of innovative development of document and information institutions in the electronic communications system, which is realized in the creation of digital assets, the introduction of virtual forms of information products and services, and the integration of libraries into the global information space. An important factor in increasing the significance of project activities is the need to change the traditional organizational forms of management of information institutions, which justified themselves in a stable environment. Currently, the activity of libraries, which occupy a clear place in the modern system of document communications, is characterized by the intensity of changes, which requires an effective response to the transformation of the needs of the modern digital space.
Important factors contributing to the active application of project activity technologies are the deployment of the digital space, which is characterized by powerful technical and technological, economic and social dynamics; transformation of the management sphere in the direction of the formation of network library systems; world and European integration processes in the field of document and information activities, globalization and digitalization of society.
An important role in achieving the goal of modernization of library institutions is played by target complex programs, which reflect the purpose and complex of socioeconomic, cultural tasks and activities aimed at creating an information and communication environment, a system of digital resources, and the communication infrastructure of society, agreed on resources, performers and deadlines. It is appropriate to note that, in general, the program has a limited chronological framework and consists of target, structural, resource, organizational and result parts. The preparation of these components requires libraries to conduct a comprehensive analysis of the external and internal environment; determination of balanced indicators of project effectiveness, application of modern methods of SWOT analysis, GAP analysis, indicators of resource support, compliance with the sequence of goal decomposition, clear separation of technical and technological processes of development of information products and services, improvement of the efficiency of planned management activities.
Within the framework of the presented research, the quantitative study of the collected data was carried out using the descriptive research methodology. During the selection of sources, an analytical method was applied in combination with the method of monitoring the content of websites. With the help of this method, the websites of the national and academic libraries of China were processed, a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the implemented projects was carried out, their purpose and tasks, and the stages of implementation were described. Among the quantitative indicators, an important place is occupied by data on the founders and participants of the project, qualitative characteristics are used to analyze its purpose and main characteristics. The main criterion for selecting projects for analysis is their scale in accordance with the number of participants and the effectiveness of the result
In the PRC, design covers all spheres of human life and society. It is the project activity that is an
important element of the cycle of management and development of libraries as leading document and
communication institutions of society. It can be claimed that the beginning of the third millennium is
characterized by a significant number of construction projects for new library buildings in China. The
active development of the higher education system contributed to the development of investments in
the construction of libraries. According to the research conducted [
A public library construction project with a unique design has been completed in Tianjin and got the name “the Eye of Binhai”. The futuristic five-level library was designed by the Dutch company MVRDV in cooperation with the Tianjin Institute of Urban Planning and Design. The area of the building is more than 34000 m2, it can keep up to 1.2 million books. The project was started in 2014 and completed in 2017.
The characteristics of China’s most powerful projects for the creation of information infrastructure are given in the table 1.
Collection and digitization of various objects of cultural heritage, ensuring wide user access to it.
Headed by the Ministry of Culture of
China. information resources;
creation and improvement of the
system of public services, supporting the development of university libraries; creating new business
formats and new methods that support
the creation of libraries in a new era and help libraries.
Support and promotion of informatization of education.
Funded by the Chinese government, managed
by the Chinese Ministry of Education, built and operated by
10 universities, including Tsinghua
University
A key education informatization infrastructure in
China and an incubator of educational Internet applications aimed at
promoting the modernization of
education Consists of more than 70 special
databases.
Contains full-text articles from more than 4 000 Chinese journals devoted to economics and management, doctoral theses, candidate theses in
medicine, mathematics, history, economics,
management, education, sociology,
etc.
Has a three-level network with a national-level center, more than 30
provincial information centers and more than 5000 information centers in counties, cities and communities.
The International Dunhuang Project
1994 Alliance of strategic
cooperation of integration of libraries and society.
April 3, 2018.
To make information
and images of all manuscripts, paintings, fabrics and artifacts from Dunhuang and
Eastern Silk Road archaeological sites freely available on the
Internet and encourage their use through educational and research
programs.
Promoting tripartite cooperation,
promoting comprehensive development of
libraries and publishing houses, overcoming production information barriers, forming a long-term dialogue and highlevel cooperation mechanism, as well as helping libraries and publishing houses to achieve quality, efficiency and motivation in the development of resources and products; reforming and creating an ecosystem of
integrated development of the entire industry chain.
The British Library and 22 participants from 12 countries including the National Library of
China, Dunhuang
Academy, National Library of France and 5 museums.
Founder: management center, library and CALIS publishing house.
CALIS Management Center together with the Beijing University Library, the Shanghai Jiaotong University Library, the Renmin
University China Library and Shenzhen
University Library
China's document and information structures are creating digital libraries where thousands of libraries present their analog collections to reach a new generation of learners and provide free, longterm, public access to knowledge and cultural heritage. The characteristics of the most powerful electronic library projects in China are given in Table 2.
Creating a digital
library; digital integration of scientific
achievements; creation of a platform designed to study the use of multimedia and
Founders and participants Funded by CarnegieMellon University and
Zhejiang University with the support of
the US National
Science Foundation (NSF) and the Ministry of Education of China
Project characteristics Includes over 2.5 million scanned books, newspapers, magazines, videos, audiobooks from all periods of Chinese history.
Chinese National Science Digital Library (CNSDL)
2001 China Digital Library
Program (CDLP)
1998 China National Science and Technology Digital
Library (NSTL).
June 12, 2000 virtual technologies in
digital libraries.
Providing support for scientific research, creating “knowledge services” within the digital library; creation
of information resources and their management system;
promotion of rapid exchange of scientific
information; strengthening the functions of the digital
library as the “desktop” of every scientist in China.
Creating a digital library of primary sources to provide a better preserving and
studying of the heritage of Chinese
culture.
Strengthening guarantees of access to national scientific and technical
resources; improvement of services related to the use of scientific and technical resources, integration of
resources, development of mechanisms for joint use of resources with
other national information services of scientific and technical information.
Academy of the PRC
Founder: National Library of China with
the support of the Ministry of Culture of
China.
National Scientific Library of the Chinese Academy of Sciences,
Institute of STI of China, China Institute of Mechanical
Engineering Information, China
National Institute of Standardization, China
Institute of
Metallurgical
Information and Standardization, China
National Chemical Information Center,
Institute of
Agricultural Information, Institute of Medical Information
Purchase of commercial electronic resources,
creation of own databases of Chinese scientific literature (over a million
records) in chemistry, biology, physics, mechanics, optics, mathematics,
astronomy, geography, computer
science.
The main area of activity: creation of a nationwide platform for expanding access
to digital storage prepared during the implementation of
this project.
The latest version of the platform includes the Founder Knowledge
Database.
Includes Chinese, Japanese and Russian
scientific and technical journals, conference materials in Chinese and
English, English scientific reports and
theses in Chinese and English; patents
from China, Australia, Germany,
France, England, Japan, Russia and America, as well as two organizations (EPO and WIPO); Chinese and foreign
standards. NSTL actively purchases Тhe Chinese Text
Project.
2006 The Academic Digital
Library of Chinese Ancient Collections (ADLCAC).
2000
Creation and development of an online digital library with open access for
readers and researchers around the world to Chinese philosophical texts.
Creation of one of the largest databases of
ancient Chinese materials stored in Chinese university libraries.
of the Chinese online and full-text Academy of Medical editions of journals Sciences, Library of for users across the
Standards of the country, pays Chinese National attention to the
Institute of acquisition of large
Standardization, international Literary Library of the retrospective National Institute of literature databases
Metrology. as a key resource for science researchers throughout China.
NSTL includes literature on Chinese
national history.
NSTL embodies a set of standardized and scintific workflows and mechanisms, from literature
collection to resource processing,
data storage, network services, and scientific literature data
analysis.
Founder: Donald An effective search
Sturgeon. engine “Xue Yuan Ji
Gu” has been
developed.
A set of digitization standards has been developed, including metadata, cataloguing, processing and digitization criteria.
Founded in the Library Contains over of Ancient Collections 660,000 metadata of Beijing University records of ancient jointly with The library materials, 290,000 of Nanjing University, photographs of the library of Beijing sample book pages Pedagogical University, and full-text images, the library of Sichuan and 83,500 e-book University. Currently, it volumes. An effective
unites 27 libraries. search engine "Xue Received support from Yuan Ji Gu" has been
CALIS, became a key developed. A set of project in the tenth digitization standards
Facilitating the creation of a national university institutional repository, promoting open access to
academic achievements, and promoting the wide application of
academic achievements.
CALIS five-year plan
(CALIS Phase II).
CALIS and Chinese University Libraries has been developed, including metadata,
cataloguing, processing and digitization criteria.
Areas of activity: 1.
Research conduction
and policy formulation: to conduct research and to study the policy related to the creation and development of alliances and to develop appropriate policies. 2. Making up standards and norms related to the institutional systems of the platform of knowledge bases, data and services. 3.
Building a system
platform: in accordance with the general needs of alliance members, carry out the development, updating and daily maintenance of the central CHAIR system and the local system;
to carry out certification of commercial products in accordance with the requirements of alliance members. 4.
Propaganda, promotion and training: promotion
of the concept of open access, various services provided by
the alliance, organization of meetings and training.
The result of the study is the recognition of project activity as an effective tool for the transformation of library and information institutions, which is used for the purpose of building new premises and separate buildings, developing information products and services, creating digital information resources at the international, national, regional and local levels; formation of digital collections of cultural and scientific heritage; development of digital and electronic library projects. It was established that the projects must meet certain criteria defined in the ISO 100006 standards.
At the same time, the project activities of the libraries of the People’s Republic of China are based
on NCB (National Competence Baseline) – a national standard that takes into account the cultural
aspects of the country. The basic rules for the development of the national standard are identical to the
ICB and contain up to 10% of elements of competencies that reflect the national features of project
activities and business methods. According to the NCB development rules: the ratio of competence
elements in the NCB must be identical to the ICB; the national association may add up to 10% of
competence elements to reflect the situation and customs of the region; the national association can
adapt the ICB when transferring it to the NCB, taking into account the situation and customs of the
region [
It was determined that libraries use different types of projects in their activities, including: monoprojects, multi-projects, mega-projects according to the scale of the tasks to be solved. A feature of project activity in China is complex multi-projects consisting of mono-projects. Under the leadership of the state, powerful mega-projects for the development of libraries are also implemented, which are implemented as components of comprehensive programs for the development of regions. Characteristic features of megaprojects are their high cost, long implementation period, and the use of a wide range of forms of financing. These types of projects differ in a certain way in technological, methodological, technical, managerial approaches to their development and implementation. It was emphasized that the recent active development of the libraries of the People’s Republic of China as components of the information infrastructure of the state requires the formation of ‘portfolios’ that include projects and programs of various types, cost, risks, strategic importance, novelty, territorial subordination.
The data of the conducted research prove that the socio-cultural design of the information and communication environment of the People’s Republic of China aims to realize the tasks of creating a highly spiritual intellectual space, protecting the interests of the state, society and an individual. In order to fulfill this task, powerful projects for the construction of libraries, the creation of full-text databases, and the formation of a knowledge network have been introduced.
It was established that the first stage of project activity on the formation of the system of document and information institutions of China began in the 70s of the XX century with the construction of modern library buildings, in accordance with the requirements of informatization. Activities in this direction remain one of the leading ones to this day. At the second stage, the program and project activities of document and information institutions of China are deployed in the direction of the formation of digital libraries. The most powerful project was implemented within the framework of the creation of the Chinese Academic Digital Library, work on which began in 1997. This project initiated the construction of China’s digital library system, and also proved the high efficiency of the application of program and project management technologies for the formation of the country’s information environment.
The analysis of the most powerful projects proved that the project activity on creating a system of document and information institutions in China was developed in accordance with the implementation of projects on the development of the higher education system. The most famous of them are “Project 211” and “Project 985”. At the end of the XX century, project activities on the formation of China’s document and information environment developed in the direction of the integration of scientific library resources and the creation of digital libraries for the higher education system. A clear example of activity in this direction is the creation of the Chinese Academic Library and Information System as part of the CALIS project, the implementation of the CERNET project – the first nationwide computer network in the field of education and research in China, the CADAL project – the creation of the Chinese Academic Digital Library. The CADAL project covered about more than 60 Chinese academic libraries and integrated the information centers of leading universities in Beijing, Tsinghua, Fudan and Nanjing. It is noted that the result of the project is the operation of the world’s largest non-profit digital library with more than 2.5 million books, which provides a universal personalized information service based on powerful multidisciplinary, multilingual digital resources.
It was determined that the third stage of the project activity of document and information institutions is their focus on strengthening the cognitive component, forming knowledge bases from various fields and forming a system of information access to global knowledge. It was established that at the third stage of the digital modernization of society, an important direction is the creation of powerful industry resources within the framework of CASHL projects – China’s academic library for social sciences and humanities, which unites 17 university libraries in China; ADLCAC – Digital Library of Chinese Old Prints, which includes over 310 000 meta-descriptions of old prints, 26 000 book photos, sample pages, and full-text images. 10 000 volumes of electronic books presented in ADLCAC create a single information space of old prints for a group of libraries, contribute to the effective implementation of new technologies and services for users. It is noted that currently, the creation of collections of unique or rare resources of academic institutions by digitizing them and organizing them by topic is an important direction of digitization of Chinese libraries