The development of Public Libraries: building a scholarly society and helping the cultural power
2022-05-12
According to statistics, by the end of 2020, there were 3212 public libraries in China, with a total collection of more than 1.179 billion books. The actual building area of houses was 17.8577 million square meters, and the average building area of public libraries per 10000 people was 126.49 square meters. "Public libraries are an important part of the socialist public cultural service system. As an important position for the whole people to read, in recent years, public libraries have always regarded 'finding books and people for books' as their important mission, give full play to the function of social knowledge intermediary, and play an irreplaceable role in serving the whole people to read and building a scholarly society." Xiong Yuanming, director of the National Library, told reporters. 1. Service reading to get through the "last mile" At night, the National Library, located in Zhongguancun South Street, Beijing, was quiet. This is one of the busiest public cultural institutions in China, with 5427 reading seats. In the first four years of the 13th five year plan, it received nearly 5.68 million readers and borrowed more than 25.11 million copies of literature. "I have been reading books here for many years. I want to find everything." Feedback from an old reader of the National Library. Tianjin, a city not far from the capital, also has a strong library construction and maintenance. The newly-built Binhai New Area Library has a construction area of about 33700 square meters and more than 2000 reading seats. A huge reading hall with a 29.6-meter-high floor and surrounded by 34 white steps in the museum has a strong sense of science and technology and beauty, attracting millions of local citizens to "punch in" every year. In order to make reading services not only cover cities, but also extend to districts, counties, streets and even villages, in recent years, China has made great efforts to implement the "general branch library system" - Taking the county as the basic unit and focusing on the countryside, exploring the unified purchase, cataloging, distribution, borrowing and returning of literature resources in the county by county-level libraries. At the same time, the "city study" and other new reading spaces that are convenient for readers to borrow are launched to expand the coverage and effectiveness of library resources. "In Wenzhou, we have 13 public libraries above the county level, 112 urban study rooms and 80 people's study rooms. Since the implementation of the general branch library system, the number of books borrowed has almost doubled. In 2021, the number of public library services was 16.6352 million, the number of documents lent out was 11.801 million, and the per capita number of documents lent out reached 1.22." Zhang Qilin, director of Wenzhou Library in Zhejiang Province, told reporters. In the eyes of local readers, there are also eight famous buses - they are the "mobile Book bus" of Wenzhou Library. Outside the blue carriage, there are five big words "auto library", carrying about 16000 books, and sending the borrowing service to communities, villages, schools and even mountains. "They have traveled 800000 kilometers, served 200000 readers and borrowed 354000 copies of literature. Every time I see children in remote areas laughing with special joy with books borrowed from the bus, I feel happy and feel that the seeds of reading are sown in their hearts." Zhang Qilin said. Wenzhou is only one of the cities that implement the general branch library system. As of October 2021, a total of 2636 counties in China have established the system of general and branch libraries. Hundreds of millions of books are circulated through lending outlets such as libraries at all levels, large and small, "urban study" and "people's study". The rapid development of the Internet has promoted the book borrowing service into thousands of households. In some cities, as long as you pay attention to the official account of the local public library, or scan the relevant QR code, you can successfully "place an order" on the mobile phone and borrow the books of the local library as easily as "order takeout". 2. Inherit ancient books and enhance cultural foundation Library is the symbol of a country's cultural development level, and the construction of book resources is the foundation. In addition to widely collecting contemporary book resources, it is also an important responsibility of the library to protect, inherit and activate ancient books. "There are a special collection of 2.9722 million ancient books, including 35651 oracle bones, 16579 Dunhuang suicide notes, 4813 Zhaocheng gold collections, 224 Yongle Dadian, 36304 Siku Quanshu, No. 819 documents of the western regions, 15339 copies of 10505 types of thunder map files. The special collection formed in recent years also includes gold and stone rubbings, map documents, old photos, manuscripts and letters, contract documents, old local chronicles, thread bound genealogies, etc." Xiong Yuanming recounts the background of the National Library. As the National Center for the protection of ancient books, the national library has also led more than 1000 ancient book collection units across the country to continuously improve the warehouse conditions and equip special facilities and equipment for the protection of ancient books, so that more than 20 million ancient books can be properly protected in accordance with the basic requirements of the library's special collection of ancient books and other national standards. What complements the protection and inheritance of the classics of the national library is the collection, sorting, dissemination and utilization of distinctive regional documents by local libraries. The capital library has a history of 109 years since Lu Xun advocated the establishment of Beijing Library Branch, Beijing popular library and other venues in 1913. In the course of running the library for more than a century, the capital library has accumulated a large number of resources such as Beijing Local Literature and books, Jinshi map, old newspapers of the Republic of China, historical photos and so on. "In order to make readers close to traditional classics and strengthen their cultural confidence, we have built a public cultural service website of 'Beijing memory' and an image database of rare ancient books in the capital library on the basis of paper resources." Ding Xiaolei, deputy research librarian of Beijing Local Literature Research Center of capital library, told reporters. Ding Xiaolei was impressed that the digital display of traditional classics broke the barrier of time and space restrictions on the borrowing of paper resources and spread the old Beijing culture overseas. A reader living in the United States called the capital library when he returned home and said that when browsing the website of "Beijing memory", he found a batch of precious old photos from the atlas of "photography of the railway project around the city of Beijing" - the atlas published in 1917 was only printed in eight sets, "it's too rare to expect to see such rare documents on the other side of the ocean". Nanjing Library, which has a long history, also attaches great importance to the digitization of ancient book resources. "Nanjing Library's full-text image database of collected works of Qing Dynasty" and "Nanjing Library's rare full-text image database of Local Chronicles" are all beneficial attempts of the library to revitalize its own resources and make ancient books "live" and "pass on" in recent years. 3. Create an atmosphere and moisten thousands of families "Reading is the best - Wang Meng", "collecting books for reading - Mo Yan" and "thinking more, reading more, writing more - Shu Yi" in the Dongcheng District Library of Beijing, there are many messages inscribed by famous cultural experts for the library. This is the result of the "sea of books and listening to the waves" series of reading promotion activities of Dongcheng District Library over the past 10 years. "We have held more than 5000 events of various sizes and invited more than 900 writers and scholars into the library to share their latest ideas and opinions. At present, the lectures have formed more than 20 series topics on literature, art, language, history and geography, folk customs, popular science, diplomacy and children, benefiting more than 600000 readers." Xiao zuogang, director of Dongcheng District Library, told reporters. The data show that public libraries at all levels across the country generally carry out lectures, exhibitions, reading guidance, reading exchange, speech reading and other activities. In 2020 alone, local public libraries held 150713 activities for readers, with 92.7933 million participants. Chen Xiaoyi is a long-term reader of Wanjiang picture book library in Dongguan, Guangdong Province. She has taken her to the library to read picture books since her daughter was 3 years old. "Now her daughter is 8 years old and the picture book library has moved its address, but the habit of taking her to the picture book library once a week has not changed, so she likes reading very much.". Ye Wenqiang is a long-term reader of Dongguan Songshan Lake picture book library. He also took his son to the library to read picture books since he was 3 years old. "He reads both Chinese and English picture books. Now he is 7 years old, and has preliminarily mastered the natural spelling of more than 300 Tang and song poems and English words". There are so many picture book readers in Dongguan. Relying on the cooperation between Dongguan Library and all social forces, Dongguan library has jointly built a "picture book library reading service system" - 28 Picture Book Libraries and 44 picture book reading service points, which are all over the streets, communities, children's hospitals, kindergartens, primary schools and villages of the city. It is truly integrated into the people's life circle and provides "services at the door of home" for readers. "From 2018 to now, our picture book library has served 1186000 people, borrowed 1.02 million books, carried out more than 3500 activities and participated by more than 250000 people. Starting with picture books, it is recognized as the 'first book' most suitable for children in the world, which plays a fundamental role in cultivating children's interest in reading and building a scholarly society." Li Donglai, director of Dongguan library, told reporters. In order to make the fragrance of books more widely infiltrate the family, Dongguan Library began to implement the "I + study" plan from April 2021. On the basis of the "capillaries" of the general and branch library system of Dongguan library, Dongguan library further located its member libraries in a wider range of villages and communities, so that readers can drive readers and even serve readers, so as to further improve the effect of reading promotion. "Reading is contagious. My community has joined the 'I + study' program, and often more than a dozen neighbors read together with more than a dozen groups of children." Ye Wenqiang said. (outlook new era)
Edit：Yuanqi Tang Responsible editor：Xiao Yu
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