Building a Web-Based Library Research Support System in A County-Level Hospital: A Five-Year Service Evaluation from China

Background: County-level hospitals in China are expected to strengthen clinical research capacity, yet many hospital libraries still function mainly as access points for journals, databases and document delivery. A web-based network library may provide a practical infrastructure for integrating information access with research training, project support, publication guidance and service evaluation. Objective: To describe the construction of a web-based library research support system in a county-level hospital and to evaluate its five-year operation using routine institutional data. Methods: A single-centre service evaluation was conducted at Xiangshui County People's Hospital, China. Aggregate data from 2021 to 2025 were obtained from the network library backend, research administration records, training attendance records, annual publication statistics and staff satisfaction surveys. Outcomes included annual visits, database downloads, download-to-visit ratio, training sessions and attendance, research projects, publications and satisfaction indicators. Descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation and least-squares linear trend analyses were used. Results: During 2021-2025, the network library recorded 11,409 visits and 7,889 downloads, with an overall download-to-visit ratio of 69.15%. Annual visits increased from 1,958 to 3,072 and annual downloads increased from 1,157 to 1,847. Visits and downloads showed a moderate positive correlation (r = 0.699, P = 0.189), although statistical significance was not reached because only five annual observations were available. Training expanded from 2 sessions and 58 person-times in 2021 to 10 sessions and 318 person-times in 2025. The hospital accumulated 34 approved or registered research projects, including 15 municipal health commission projects, 6 municipal science and technology bureau projects and 13 university-local cooperation projects. Publications increased from 6 to 28 per year, including 18 core/statistical-source papers and 4 SCI-indexed papers over five years. Satisfaction scores increased from 82.4 to 92.3 points, and satisfaction rates increased from 84.4% to 94.0%. Conclusions: A web-based network library can function as an organisational platform for research capacity building in county-level hospitals. Its value is not limited to literature provision but lies in linking information access, research training, project cultivation, publication support and feedback-based improvement. Because this was a single-centre, uncontrolled service evaluation, the findings should be interpreted as practice-based evidence rather than proof of causality.