Abstract:
Public libraries bear the responsibility of promoting the development of public cultural services. Accelerating the development process of information accessibility in public libraries can better guide the provision of public cultural services. Taking 243 public libraries in prefecture-level cities and above in China as research samples, based on the TOE (Technology, Organization, Environment) theoretical framework, this study employs the fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) to investigate the main factors affecting the current development of information accessibility in China's public libraries and to explore corresponding paths for improvement and enhancement. The study finds that individual influencing factors are insufficient to drive the development of information accessibility in libraries, but combinations of different factors can have a significant impact. There are primarily four paths driving high information accessibility development: technology-organization-environment synergy, channel-organization-demand driven, technology-talent-environment driven, and channel-financial foundation. There is one path that does not lead to high information accessibility development: technology-organization support. It is recommended that public libraries should focus on perfecting the TOE framework for information accessibility development, choosing the appropriate combination of paths based on their actual conditions, and leveraging the core conditions within the combination paths to promote the smooth development of information accessibility in China's libraries.