Guangzhou, January 2 (China Youth Daily, China Youth Daily reporter Lin Jie) Today, the "Wind is Hanging on the Sails - 40 Years of Guangzhou Library" results exhibition opened. Fang Jiazhong, director of Guangzhou Library, said that in the past 40 years, Guangzhou Library has served more than 130 million citizens and registered more than 2.4 million readers, "which is the pride of librarians and the pride of Guangzhou citizens."
The exhibition is divided into four parts with a span of 10 years, and traces the history of the museum with rich pictures, texts, and videos. More than 150 objects, such as historical documents, local documents, books donated by the Friendship Library and Consulate, signature books of famous artists, and physical objects of brand activities, are exhibited together with texts, showing the public the bits and pieces of serving readers in the past 40 years.
From January 2 to 9, the precious collection of the Guangzhou Library, which was first seen with the public, included many collections and rare books, including the "Imperial Ancient Sayings" written by the Qianlong Emperor of the Qing Dynasty, the "Compendium of Canon Law" printed in Mainz, Germany in 1472, and the "Cantonese Customs Manuscript" of the Inspector General of the Qing and Guangdong Customs.
On January 2, 1982, the Guangzhou Library (Spark Of Fire) was opened, ending the 27-year history of Guangzhou without a municipal public library. After 40 years, There are now 313 public libraries in Guangzhou, and 176 streets and towns in the city have achieved 100% full coverage of public libraries, and all of them have achieved universal borrowing and repayment. Since 2014, Guangzhou Library has ranked first in the number of basic services in China for six consecutive years. On August 5, 2018 alone, more than 50,000 readers entered the library, setting a record for the highest number of visitors to a public library in a single day in a city in China, and Guangzhou Library was hailed as "the busiest library in the world".
The old library of Guangzhou Library located in Zhongshan 4th Road, Guangzhou, is the first large-scale cultural facility newly built in Guangzhou after the reform and opening up, and the new library located in Zhujiang New Town, Guangzhou CBD, is the first construction project in the climax of the new round of cultural facilities construction in Guangzhou after entering the new century, with a total investment of 1.3 billion yuan and an area of 100,000 square meters, which is still the largest urban public library in the world with a single construction area, standing on the north bank of the Pearl River with the image of "beautiful books on the edge of the Pearl River". It has become a beautiful landscape in the living room of Guangzhou city.
Fang Jiazhong revealed that the purchase cost of guangzhou libraries increased from 187,000 yuan in 1982 to 59 million yuan in 2019, and the per capita new books in the city reached 0.2 volumes (pieces). Guangzhou Library's collection resources have grown from 140,000 volumes when the library opened in 1982 to more than 10 million volumes in 2019, ranking third among public libraries in China.
In the past 40 years, Guangzhou Library has set more than 25 leading records in the national library industry: taking the lead in opening the book shelf for reading, taking the lead in opening up the issuance of library cards, setting up the country's first public computer library, setting up the country's first electronic reading room for the blind, and taking the lead in implementing deposit-free registration, etc., and achieving a new level of public welfare and equal service in the library industry in the field of public cultural services.
In December 2021, Guangzhou Library won the title of "National Advanced Collective of Culture and Tourism System", and is the only unit in the library industry in Guangdong Province to receive this honor.
Photo: Lin Jie
Source: China Youth Daily client