Each place has different landscapes and cultures, and the bookstores in each place also have different personalities and connotations.
Some bookstores make books into "script killings", and some bosses come up with ideas for readers to choose books on the spot... On today's "World Book Day", let's take a look at some independent bookstores in various districts of Chongqing, what kind of "tricks" have in improving the reading of the whole people?
Yuzhong District "Time in time" bookstore: wandering in the time of the mother city
"In Time" Bookstore
From the "Time in time" bookstore that was originally opened at the Grand Theater, to the "Time Shop" in Shancheng Lane, to the newly opened "Shancheng Time Library" in the old site of Jinma Primary School last year, Li Kecheng has never left Yuzhong District. As the person in charge of "Time", this Chongqing cub who grew up in Yuzhong District, the history and culture of Yuzhong Mother City continue to inspire him. He wants to make "Time" a bookstore that carries the memory of the city, tell the story of the mountain city more vividly, and create a "three-dimensional" Chongqing.
The bookstore that Li Kecheng is committed to building is not only reading on paper, but also can see, touch, hear, and eat! And it is full of Chongqing flavor, and he hopes to let the readers who enter the store read the city of Chongqing in three dimensions. As a result, he reduced the variety of books in the store from more than 2,000 to 130, and only sold books related to Chongqing, cultural creations, and even chutney powder, tuo tea, and Lao Yin tea.
In 2018, "Time" launched a crowd creation and published "Old City Time", which contains hundreds of real stories written by ordinary Chongqing people, allowing readers to participate in the creation of stories related to the city, some people say that this is not doing the right thing; in 2020, "Time" "came out" from the Grand Theater and created a new space in Shancheng Lane, some people said that such a bold "expansion" has great risks. But what Li Kecheng wants is to make bookstore culture ubiquitous and truly integrate into the lives of Chongqing citizens.
This is also the "three-dimensional reading" advocated by "time" - in his view, the function of the bookstore is to establish a connection between knowledge and people. "Those who are good at reading, nothing is more than books", as long as they have the habit of observing and absorbing, they can read anytime and anywhere. Therefore, every product in "time" is a book, just the difference in size. For example, the four tuo teas sold by the bookstore have "time chronicles" on them, telling a piece of Chongqing's history or interesting little story, spreading culture from the inside out, so that readers who enter the store can "read" the city in three dimensions.
Li Kecheng said that everyone has reading habits, but the way is different, and everyone prefers audiobooks and videos at the moment, which is not a negative phenomenon. "Although I love paper books more, and some of my persistence is worthy of praise, I should think more about how to adapt to this era." Therefore, in addition to developing characteristic cultural and creative products, "Time" also joined hands with the script killing creative team to adapt "Old City Time" into a script killing, which will be officially launched in June. Enhance participants' understanding of history and culture in the game. In his view, this belongs to a kind of "learning social", extending books into "alive" products, so that reading is everywhere.
In addition, in the time library of Jinma Primary School in Shancheng Lane, a new "shared bookshelf" was set up this month: citizens can bring books that are idle or want to share, and share the joy of reading with other readers.
Hideyama from the Clerical Society: Attract readers with personalized reading
Hideyama from the Clerical Society
Xiushan is the prototype of Shen Congwen's "Border City", and judging by the name "From the Book Society", it also has its own literary atmosphere.
In Xiushan Congcong Calligraphy Club, there are not only books, but also cultural creation, exhibitions, activities, boutique life halls, coffee in one, multi-dimensional dissemination of traditional Chinese culture to readers, to create a new composite cultural space for easy shopping, comfortable reading, and leisure socializing.
"One page, one world, one book, one universe." In addition to sitting alone and turning quietly, reading also means encountering and dialogue again and again..." Peng Jiebing, head of the book club, believes that running a bookstore needs to consider the matching degree of its own positioning and attract readers with personalized reading.
In recent years, bookstores have changed from the traditional pattern of simply buying books and selling books to a business model based on books, cross-industry, cross-system, cross-scope, multi-form, multi-brand and multi-channel. Moreover, with books as the medium, the sale of books will be integrated with reading, book tasting, book evaluation, book writing, reading and experience, reading and leisure, reading and creativity synchronization, and the bookstore will be turned into a fashion cultural space for Xiushan readers to gather, read books, taste tea, and drink coffee, and realize the role transformation of traditional bookstores from serving readers to serving the public. At the same time, various reading activities are jointly held with primary and secondary schools to stimulate young people's enthusiasm for reading and learning.
Peng Jiebing believes that in the reading activities of the whole people, physical bookstores are an important base for enhancing people's reading interest, enriching mass cultural life, promoting the dissemination of civilization and cultural reproduction, and should tap and sublimate their own value to create a cultural exchange platform that provides personalized services and meets the reading needs of the whole people.
He believes that most of the previous reading promotion activities mainly relied on public libraries, but libraries often have the problem of insufficient book categories and limited service scope, while independent bookstores have a natural advantage in organizing themed reading activities. In recent years, it has carried out activities such as the Xiushan Young Poet Li Sijun Poetry Creation Sharing Meeting, the Local Excellent Writers Book Exhibition, and the weekly collection of "Golden Jade Good Words" prizes on the bookstore's public account, providing readers with personalized and diversified cultural experiences and promoting the cultivation of reading habits of the whole people.
Jiangjin Meets Cultural Book City: The founder guides readers to buy books
Jiangjin meets the Cultural Book City
In this largest private bookstore in Jiangjin District, founder Guo Zhaocai is known as a "thinker of the bookstore industry" and is enthusiastic about public welfare undertakings, especially the promotion of reading for all.
"Carrying out reading for the whole people and building a bookish society is a major event related to the quality of the people and the future of the nation." Reading plays a vital role in improving cultural self-confidence, especially in forming a deep and lasting cultural self-confidence. ”
The bookstore's co-book store is divided into multiple functional areas in an orderly manner. Among the nearly 200,000 books, there are about 150,000 social science books, which is exactly in line with Guo Zhaocai's belief that "the whole people read mainly in social science books".
Guo Zhaocai's hometown is in the countryside, when he was a child, he often went to the Xinhua Bookstore in the town to "rub books" to read, developed the habit of reading, and thus changed his fate, went out of the countryside, and saw the wider world.
Therefore, he deliberately set aside more than 100 seats in the bookstore for readers to read for free. Usually, he will also come to the bookstore reading area, if the reader has the need to buy books, he will guide the purchase of books, and regularly hold various reading activities in the store, inviting famous artists and readers to communicate face-to-face to create a reading atmosphere and cultivate the good habit of the public to enter the bookstore to read books.
Through public welfare book donation activities, bookstores also let books go to more places and come to different groups, so that more people can experience the joy of reading. In recent years, Guo Zhaocai has donated more than 10,000 books worth more than 200,000 yuan to rural bookstores, detention centers, migrant workers' bookstores, urban and rural primary schools, etc.
"Although physical bookstores have been impacted, I believe that it will not come to an end, and our city needs beautiful cultural landscapes." Guo Zhaocai said that as long as there is a slight profit, he will continue to do it, and he plans to open a new bookstore in the future and recommend the good books in his heart to more readers.
Nanchuan Knowledge Book City: Bookstores should be "incubators" of culture
Nanchuan Knowledge Book City
Deng Xinwei's favorite moment is when he patrols the store every day. Seeing someone quietly holding a book and reading, or focusing on taking notes and writing homework, I feel at ease and have a sense of accomplishment.
As the person in charge of Nanchuan Knowledge Book City, Deng Xinwei believes that Nanchuan has a long history and profound cultural accumulation, and since ancient times, it has had an excellent cultural tradition of revering literature and re-teaching and cultivating and reading heirlooms. Nowadays, reading for all has become a trend, and bookstores should shoulder their responsibilities and become participants and promoters of reading for all.
In Deng Xinwei's view, the new crown epidemic has brought great changes to the consumption habits of readers and generated many new needs, and Nanchuan Knowledge Book City continues to explore online reading, online bookstore push, and open WeChat, telephone book purchase and other services.
He realized that in order to cope with the current changes, we must take the initiative to adapt to the crisis breakthrough and transformation and upgrading of physical bookstores, focusing on exploring the new media marketing methods of physical bookstores, innovating the new infrastructure of "5G + bookstores", creating smart bookstores, relying on the national reading system and the district and county online cultural tourism exhibition halls, promoting the construction of Cloud Book City, and accurately serving readers with content.
For example, the brand activities formed by the Knowledge Book City itself include special service projects such as "Golden Buddha Mountain Cultural Lecture Hall", "Weekend Book Encounter", "You Read, I Pay". In addition, the book city also insists on holding more than 10 theme activities such as "Spring Festival Book Fair", "Traditional Festival Good Book Promotion" and "4.23 Huimin Book Fair" every year, actively participates in cultural poverty alleviation, and actively integrates into the construction of book institutions, book campuses, and book communities.
"Now the Knowledge Book City integrates more cultural public welfare into it, and from the perspective of improving services, it has added some other formats and enriched the living content of the space, with the purpose of making more people like bookstores and making reading a daily routine for more people." Deng Xinwei hopes that even readers who come in by chance will find an interesting and nostalgic place to stay, where they can place their free time in the bookstore and taste the taste of reading.
"Like the classic line in Casablanca, 'There are so many towns in the world, there are so many taverns in towns, and she walked into mine', and the reader walked into my bookstore, and that was the beginning of fate." In Deng Xinwei's view, readers bring their own scenery, to create a book city, the creation of a reading atmosphere is very important, the bookstore is not only a "transit station" for books, but also an "incubator" for culture, to create a reading space, to open up a clean land, so that more people like bookstores, fall in love with reading.
He said that in the current period, bookstores should pay more attention to service characteristics and coordination with the environment, formulate bookstore IP, and base bookstores on the important places for disseminating cultural information, leading cultural trends, and building cultural ecology, so that bookstores can become unique cultural landmarks of a city. "I just wanted to own a bookstore. Let the bookstore grow slowly with the city, and even become the memory of the city. ”
Upstream journalist Ji Wenling