Exploring the LIS Academic Labor Market in China: A Supply and Demand Analysis

This paper presents an empirical analysis of the supply-and-demand dynamics in the library and information science (LIS) academic market in China. This analysis is based on a broad concept of academic market and large-scale labor-market data. The authors find a shift in faculty positions, in which traditional positions in universities and research institutions have been replaced with relatively new, temporary academic positions, such as contract-based positions, research librarians, and army lecturers. In addition, they speculate that institutional prestige contributes to a structural mismatch in the Chinese LIS market. Confronted with a changing academic job market, LIS institutions and associations need to strengthen the training of doctoral students' transferable skills to improve their entry into the academic market. To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first attempt to investigate the supply and demand of the LIS academic market in China, which can provide a reference for the global LIS academic community.