Purpose The purpose of this paper is to introduce the implementation of the official WeChat account, the most popular mobile social media site in China, to share Jinan University Library collections and services to students, faculty and staff. The implementation, experience and issues have implications for academic libraries and other institutions to run and improve social media tools. Design/methodology/approach This paper is a case study, which elaborates on the implementation process of the official WeChat account, including project group establishment, account application and management, users’ needs analysis, WeChat secondary development and model of development. Findings The official WeChat account has already engaged a population of followers who are able to directly access library resources and service via their mobile device. The social media tool is an effective approach to promote library services and to enhance relationships between the library and its users. The issues appear during the process of WeChat implementation and promotion, which requires WeChat’s provider, third-party application vendors and the library to work together to solve. Originality/value The implementation of official WeChat account has practical implications for academic libraries and other institutions to conduct it and similar social media tools, such as Sina Weibo, Facebook and Line. In particular, it is beneficial for academic libraries outside China which desire to use WeChat to engage Chinese international students. Additionally, it provides insight into the future effort on social media promotion, secondary development and cooperation within the social networking industry.

To understand the history and research status of earthworm, earthworm research citation data was collected from the Science Citation Index Expanded during the period from 2000 to 2015. Next, HistCite was used to analyse the yearly output, country, institution, journal, citation impact and citation relationships in the field. Results indicated that the research of earthworm has increased during the studied 16-year period. The country with the highest research output was the USA, while the institution with the highest research output was the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The majority of articles and Total Location Citation Score (TLCS) values came from developed countries. Developed countries have more research advantages in this field than that of developing countries. The top three outputs journals were Soil Biology and Biochemistry, Pedobiologia and Applied Soil Ecology. The top 3 TLCS journals were the same as top outputs journals. Articles published with higher TLCS scores had a greater impact on the following research and played an important role in research development.

Purpose Focusing on two particularly challenging issues facing Chinese academic libraries – space constraints and the trending of digital scholarship services, this paper aims to explore which spaces students and faculty wanted and how to leverage low-use spaces and growing digital scholarship services to build the Center for Digital Scholarship (CDS) to meet their demands. Design/methodology/approach The participant observation method was used in the launch stage of the space redesign from May 2016 to October 2018. The usage analysis method was used to reveal the use of the renovated spaces and assess the success of the space redesign when CDS was open to users between October 1, 2017 and September 30, 2018. The usage was gathered from the space reservation system. Findings A hybrid academic service center combining information commons, a collaborative workplace, social spaces and digital scholarship services, the CDS is able to meet the complexity and diversity of users’ needs and fulfill the mission of its university in the context of insufficient funds, space and specialists. While it approaches the goal of the space redesign project, some deficiencies remain to be addressed in the future design and service plan, including separating quiet and noisy areas, flexible arrangements and business process reengineering. Practical implications This study shows a hybrid academic service center can meet the complexity and diversity of users’ needs, despite insufficient funds, space and specialists. To ensure sustainability, digital scholarship services should adapt to local users’ needs and expectations. While the author’s patent service and subject development analysis are local and popular with the users and sectors in his university, they make their services somewhat different from those of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) members. Originality/value This is one of the few, recent studies on space redesign incorporating digital scholarship services in a well-known academic library in China.

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Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore whether the databases from a certain library are Pareto-compliant or not? If so, to what extent is the Pareto principle performance evident among these databases? The other purpose is to determine the differences in Pareto principle performance according to time change and database type. Design/methodology/approach Data on full-text downloads from six e-resources – Elsevier ScienceDirect (SD), Wiley Blackwell, Springer Journal, EBSCO Business Source Premier (BSP), American Chemical Society and American Institute of Physics (AIP) – for the period 2007-2013 were analysed; 42 samples were collected from these databases. The proportion of frequently downloaded journals from databases was selected as an indicator to determine differences in Pareto principle performance according to time change. The difference between the proportion of frequently downloaded journals and the classic proportion of 20 per cent was used as indicator to determine difference in Pareto principle performance related to database type. Findings There are 33 samples (78.57 per cent) which exhibited the Pareto principle. Four databases – Elsevier SD, Wiley Blackwell, EBSCO BSP and AIP – constantly exhibited the Pareto principle. The differences were not significant according to time change. The two multi-discipline databases – Elsevier SD and Wiley Blackwell – fluctuated more moderately than the two single-discipline databases – EBSCO BSP and AIP. Multi-discipline and single-discipline databases showed some differences in Pareto principle performance; however, these differences were not remarkable. Originality/value The Pareto principle confirmed that there were frequent and infrequent downloads of e-journals from e-journal databases. It was of great importance to analyse these to improve digital resources acquisition and user service.