Embedded Librarianship in China: Based on a Survey of University Libraries

摘要

Embedded librarianship is an inevitable outcome of the information era. Since the concept of embedded librarianship emerged in 2004, a flurry of papers have been published. In China, many related research papers have also been published, but few of them focus on the practice of embedded librarianship in libraries of Chinese universities. This article investigates the current progress and practice of embedded librarianship in China. A total of 84 Chinese university libraries were surveyed. This article demonstrates that a few university libraries have achieved promising embedded practices, but most remain in the initial stages. Most librarians do not clearly understand the concept of embedded librarianship. To date, the embedded model is still in the transforming stage, and incentive mechanisms and evaluation systems have not been perfected. Based on these results, some suggestions are proposed to accelerate the development of embedded librarianship.