By the end of 2021, the actual number of licensed readers in public libraries across the country exceeded 103 million. In 2012, this figure was 24.8451 million. In the past 10 years, the actual number of licensed readers in public libraries has increased by more than 315%. Behind the growth of data, it reflects that the coverage of public libraries continues to expand, their attractiveness and service efficiency continue to improve, and public cultural undertakings and national reading undertakings are also accelerating.
——The institutional system is more complete, which promotes the flourishing of the library industry.
Since 2015, the Central Office and the State Office have repeatedly emphasized the gradual construction of a multi-level and multi-modal public cultural service supply system. In the past 10 years, the "Public Cultural Service Guarantee Law of the People's Republic of China" has been implemented, providing legal protection for the people's basic cultural rights and interests such as reading newspapers; Service provision, management system and guarantee mechanism, etc. have made specific provisions... A series of laws, regulations and policies have been issued to ensure that the construction, management and services of public libraries can continuously meet the growing spiritual and cultural needs of the people and promote the thriving industry of libraries.
——The facility system is continuously improved, and high-quality resources are extended to the grassroots.
By the end of 2021, there will be 3,215 public libraries nationwide, more than 40,000 township (street) cultural stations, more than 570,000 village-level comprehensive cultural service centers, and more than 580,000 rural bookstores. All public libraries will be free and open. In order to extend high-quality reading resources to the grass-roots level, various places have promoted the construction of the general branch system of county-level libraries. The original "single supply" in communities and villages has been transformed into "multiple supply" and "interactive supply", and the book resources are more abundant and high-quality. As of June, this year, 2,642 counties (cities, districts) have established a general library system.
——Service innovation is increasingly diversified to meet the individualized cultural needs of the masses.
At present, more than 18,000 new public cultural spaces such as "urban study rooms" and "cultural stations" have been built, providing people with more personalized public cultural services. In addition, public libraries across the country widely carry out the service of "you read books, I pay the bill", and the purchase of new books is decided by readers, which greatly improves the popularity and satisfaction of libraries. Qingdao, Chengdu and other places have built cultural supermarkets, adopting personalized and "order-based" services to meet people's diverse needs; Beijing, Tianjin and other places have issued "cultural benefit cards", which offered package of cultural products for the masses to choose according to their preferences.
——Online services are continuously upgraded, allowing reading to break the constraints of time and space.
At present, all prefecture-level city libraries and 99% of county-level libraries in the country can provide readers with 145TB of digital resources, including 300,000 e-books, more than 7,700 periodicals, and 200,000 music audios. On this basis, various localities have continuously innovated digital service models, and activities such as digital libraries, online lending, and online reading have won the welcome and praise of the general public, especially young readers.
The relevant person in charge of the Public Service Department of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism said that the rapid increase in the number of readers reflects people's recognition of public library services. In the next step, we will adhere to the theme of high-quality development to promote reading for all and strive to provide the public with higher-quality, more efficient, fairer, more sustainable, and safer public cultural services.
Translator: WANG Jiahui
Reviewer: ZHANG Ruochen
