Developing Library Services for International Students in China's Universities: What Does the Literature Tell Us?

Despite the rapid growth of international students in China's universities, university libraries are not fully prepared. The new requirements of this rapidly emerging community have not been fully understood nor well addressed. This paper reports on a research study that aims at developing library services for international students, on the basis of identifying and understanding of their requirements. This study adopted an inductive literature analysis approach for the analysis of 52 articles retrieved from international and Chinese academic databases. Fourteen library service requirements emerged from the analysis in four main categories: academic support requirements, physical environment requirements, resource and collection development requirements, and librarian outreach support requirements. Further conceptualisation of the research findings revealed three core library service requirements: academic development requirements, leisure/recreational requirements, and language and cultural learning requirements. This study focuses on China's university libraries; however, the research findings provide useful implications and insights that can be shared across international borders.