Keywords: library information asymmetry countermeasures
The library is a functional department that preserves human cultural heritage, disseminates scientific and cultural knowledge, conducts social education and transmits literature information in society. It provides a guarantee for social members to carry out knowledge-based social activities and plays an irreplaceable role in the social structure. However, with the in-depth study of the theory of information asymmetry in information economics, we find that there are different levels of information asymmetry in the daily work of the library, which leads to "market failure", "adverse selection" and "moral hazard" in the library, hinders the social role of the library, prevents readers from obtaining the maximum benefit from the library, and seriously affects the operation of the library as a high-quality information carrier. Therefore, in the research of asymmetric information theory, it is very urgent and necessary to find scientific and effective countermeasures to restrain asymmetric information phenomenon in library work, combined with the adjustment methods for these invalid markets, which is of great significance.
1. Information asymmetry theory
Information asymmetry refers to the asymmetric distribution of knowledge or information about related events among corresponding economic entities. The basis of information asymmetry is the asymmetry of people's ability to obtain information. On the one hand, due to the different social division of labor, workers in a certain industry have more information of their own industry on average than workers in other industries, so that workers in different industries have information asymmetry in different information fields or different periods. On the other hand, the emergence of specialization makes individuals know more professional knowledge in their own professional fields than individuals in other professional fields, which leads to the asymmetry of professional information. The higher the degree of division of labor and career development, the higher the requirements for production cooperation and mutual coordination of social members.
The existence of information asymmetry will lead to adverse selection and moral hazard. The information superior party (that is, the agent) uses some information unknown by the information inferior party (that is, the client) to sign a contract that is beneficial to the agent himself, which is called adverse selection; The behavior that an agent maximizes his own utility while damaging the utility of the principal or other agents is called moral hazard. The existence of adverse selection and moral hazard destroys the equilibrium of economic market or leads to the inefficiency of market equilibrium, which leads to market failure. [ 1]
In order to effectively curb adverse selection and moral hazard, we should improve the information asymmetry environment between the principal and the agent as much as possible, such as signal transmission and information screening, and eliminate the information asymmetry gap between the two subjects, so as to adjust the ineffective or inefficient market equilibrium and bring more benefits to both parties involved.
2. Information asymmetry in library work.
The subjects involved in the daily work of the library are: library, readers, funders and booksellers. There is information asymmetry in the work of these subjects. It can be said that information asymmetry permeates all aspects of library work, which reduces the efficiency and effect of library work to varying degrees.
2. 1 Information asymmetry between libraries and readers
Readers are the largest user group in the library, and there is a lot of information asymmetry between readers and library staff, which is mainly reflected in their understanding of resources, professional ability and information demand. [2]
First of all, readers lack understanding of the total amount and composition of library resources. Readers don't understand the library's literature information resources, superior professional resources, characteristic resources, purchasing plans and the characteristics of reading rooms. Especially with the wide application of electronic resources such as databases, there is also asymmetry of digital resources information between librarians and readers, which is mainly reflected in the fact that users do not understand the professional information and retrieval characteristics of various databases. The above information directly restricts readers' use behavior, access to information and benefits brought by information, which is very important for library users. Therefore, information asymmetry reduces the interests of readers and the functions and functions of libraries.
Secondly, there is information asymmetry between librarians and readers in information management and information retrieval. Library staff generally have strong information retrieval ability and knowledge of information organization and management, while readers are relatively lacking in this respect, which makes the information such as professional ability between readers and libraries asymmetric.
Thirdly, the library does not grasp the information needs of users, which are influenced by reading psychology, retrieval level, professional expertise, reading needs, reading rules and other information. Library staff know nothing about users' information and lack of investigation and research on readers, which makes the gap between them even bigger. [3]
The existence of these asymmetric information leads to adverse selection and moral hazard. For example, library staff can only serve all readers with their general information needs; Library staff are lazy and fail to provide readers with comprehensive information services.
2.2 Information asymmetry between libraries and document suppliers
Information asymmetry also exists widely between library buyers and document providers. Literature providers have a full understanding of the types and prices of information resources, and they have more information products to publish and distribute information, while library buyers are at an information disadvantage. Because the library doesn't know the supplier's information, it can only buy the supplier's information products at the average price, so the high-quality agents (literature suppliers) will be squeezed out of the market and adverse selection will occur. After signing the purchase contract, the supplier's previous commitments on data processing services and book arrival rate will be greatly reduced, which will damage the interests of the library and make the library face moral hazard.
At the same time, most library funds are allocated in batches, so that low-quality literature suppliers usually win at low prices, which further strengthens the result of adverse selection. At present, the self-built database resources of libraries are constantly emerging in small databases with general quality, various types and little usage, while the large databases with high quality and strong professionalism have delayed their purchase plans because of price and other reasons.
2.3 Information asymmetry between the library and the higher authorities
As the main funder of the library, the higher authorities are also the subjects closely related to the interests of the library. The competent unit is not very familiar with the actual operation of the library, the overall use of resources and funds, and can not achieve effective supervision and management. Therefore, it can't allocate funds completely according to the requirements of the library, and there will often be insufficient funds or delays. Public welfare units that rely on financial allocations naturally cannot develop as expected. At the same time, the library did not report and feedback the working ideas, working objectives, working plans, opinions and suggestions to the higher authorities in time. The reason is that the scientific communication mechanism of "upload and release" has not been established, and the existence of information asymmetry between the library and the higher authorities and the lack of signal transmission mechanism have also hindered the construction and development of the library cause.