The history of the Capital Library can be traced back to 1913, after the founding of the People's Republic of China, this library was once the highest university in ancient times, Guozi Supervision Library, and became the "think tank" of the capital's economic construction. With the successive completion and opening of the Shoutu New Library, the Shoutu Daxing Airport Branch Library and the Beijing City Library, the Shoutu of "One Library and Three Sites" is now bringing readers a new cultural experience.
In 1957, the Capital Library was opened in Guozijian. The picture shows a reader reading a book in the reading room. (Photo: Li Xi)
In the 50s, he was in the Guozi Supervision Hall
The predecessor of the Capital Library was the Jingshi Library Branch, the Jingshi Popular Library, and the Central Park Book Reading Center, which were founded in June 1913, October 1913, and August 1917 respectively. The three libraries were renamed, relocated, and merged several times until the founding of the People's Republic of China and the Beijing Municipal Library.
At that time, the main library of Beijing was located at No. 35 Xihuamen Street, and in addition to providing reading services, it would also often hold cultural activities. For example, in 1953, the museum held a symposium and invited the writer Yang Shuo to have a discussion with 200 citizens, and all workers, soldiers, cadres, and students who had read or were preparing to read his work "Three Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains" could sign up to participate. In 1954, in order to commemorate the 2231st anniversary of the death of the patriotic poet Qu Yuan, the Beijing Library held a report meeting, inviting cultural celebrities to interpret "the people's poet Qu Yuan and his works", and invited the actors of the Beijing People's Art Theater to recite Qu Yuan's works on the spot.
Due to the crowded buildings and scattered collections, it is gradually difficult for the Beijing Library to meet the needs of readers. In 1956, the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Culture decided to expand the scale of the Beijing Municipal Library and moved the site to Guozijian in the East Fourth District, naming it "Capital Library". In March of the following year, the museum was officially opened. According to the Beijing Daily on March 19, 1957, the second edition of the "Capital Library Qianguo Zijian" reported, at that time, Shoutu had 10 reading rooms and 1 exhibition room, which could receive more than 600 readers at the same time, and the library also had a lounge and a commissary. Since there are buses outside the east and west entrances of Guozijian Street, it is more convenient for people to go to Shoutu.
March 19, 1957, Beijing Daily, page 2
Since then, Shoutu's cultural service functions have been increasing. In 1958, Shoutu launched a mail-in loan (postage is the responsibility of the reader). After the reader goes through the mailing and borrowing procedures, the library can often send a new book catalog, and the reader can choose the books he borrows according to the catalog, and use the communication method to propose the title of the borrowed book, and the book can be sent to the reader. In 1960, Shoutu organized some literary and art lovers to set up a "Readers' Literary Criticism Group" to improve their literary theory and creative level through various activities such as listening to lectures, reading books, watching dramas (movies), and meeting and discussing with professional or amateur authors.
January 17, 1960, Beijing Daily, page 2
The number of books in Shoutu is also increasing day by day. In 1949, there were only 120,000 books in the first picture, and by 1961, the number of books in the first picture had reached more than 1 million. In the reading room, there are always many readers who are intently reading various books and research materials; At the borrowing office, people go to apply for long-term library cards from time to time.
In those days, Shoutu became a cultural treasure trove loved by citizens.
In 1963, students from the No. 2 Girls' High School helped repair and sort out books that had been damaged by long-term borrowing in the stacks of the Capital Library. (Photo: Gao Hong)
The "Think Tank" of the Capital's Economic Construction
After the reform and opening up, urban construction is changing with each passing day, and Shoutu has continuously expanded the scope of services, taking the lead in carrying out scientific and technological and social science information consultation work for economic construction in libraries of various provinces and municipalities across the country.
According to the first edition of the Beijing Daily on December 7, 1984, "Taking the Initiative to Provide Information to Serve Economic Construction", at that time, Shoutu organized more than 3,000 scientific and technological personnel who often went to borrow books, and let them use their spare time to serve small and medium-sized enterprises with weak technical strength. Beijing ivory carving factory due to ivory carving products backlog once stopped production, after the first picture learned, the organization of scientific and technological personnel for the factory to provide an alloy process, with this alloy made of Jingpo, Li and other ethnic minority clothing, than the price of silver clothing one-third, very popular. At the same time, Shoutu also provided the factory with a superplastic metal process used to make commemorative coins with patterns such as the Forbidden City, which were sold out when they were sold out. Thanks to the help, the factory "turned the corner". From May to October 1984 alone, Shoutu organized scientific and technological personnel to provide six scientific research achievements for four factories, such as dust removal blackboard eraser, building climbing trolley, and multi-functional tools.
December 7, 1984, Beijing Daily, page 1
In the second half of 1986, the number of books in the first picture reached more than 2.3 million. Using these book resources, Shoutu provides strong support for the construction of the capital, for example, according to the research projects of scientific research units and enterprise technical departments, regularly provides the latest technical trends and materials; Assist relevant departments in providing reference literature for decision-making; In view of the lack of books, talents, and information in the rural areas, we have used such methods as running newspapers and sending technical materials to the countryside to provide services for the implementation of the "Spark Plan" in rural areas.
Shoutu has also successively compiled 143 volumes and 14.41 million words of professional journals such as "Beijing Financial Chronicles", "Beijing Landscaping Chronicles" and "Beijing Health Chronicles", and also compiled more than 30 kinds of special literature compilations with 18 million words for users. In the 90s of the last century, Xuanwu District put forward the development strategy of rebuilding the Tianqiao and revitalizing Xuanwu, and the first map provided the "Tianqiao Area Historical Data Collection" for Xuanwu District, which played an important role in the smooth formulation of the development strategy of the district and the promotion of regional economic and cultural construction.
In addition, Shoutu has also completed the "Comparative Study on the Social, Political, Economic and Cultural Development of the Gross Domestic Product in the World from 300 to 4000 US Dollars per Capita", "Analysis of the Wage Income Characteristics of Foreign Mental Workers and Manual Workers", "Investigation of the Civil Service System in Ancient and Modern China and Foreign Countries" and other topics, and has provided a large number of valuable literature and information for the prevention and control of noise on highways and airports, the introduction and development of margarine, and the technology of improving the gloss of gold jewelry of import and export companies. It has become a strong backing for the economic construction of the capital.
August 23, 1996, Beijing Daily, page 5
The new museum has become a cultural landmark in Beijing
In the eighties and nineties of the last century, the original facilities of Shoutu could not keep up with the pace of development of the times, and the phenomenon of "hard to find a seat" existed all year round. On the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the establishment of the first library, the Beijing Municipal Party Committee and the Municipal Government decided to build a new library of the capital library and included it in the city's key cultural projects. In December 1997, the construction of the new Shoutu Museum began. Two years later, a modern gray building rose on the east side of the Warwick Bridge in the southeast third ring road and became an important cultural landmark in Beijing.
On the eve of the Spring Festival in 1992, the Capital Library delivered books to the soldiers. (Photo by Du Xizhong)
The new museum was officially opened in May 2001. The appearance of this library is like a big book opened, covering an area of 38,000 square meters, with a construction area of 37,000 square meters, the building pattern is one floor underground, eight floors above ground, seven floors in both wings, with a literature reading room, an audio-visual reading room, an electronic reading room, a lecture hall, etc., with more than 1,000 reading seats. The layout design fully takes into account the service functions of public facilities, of which the reader's activity area accounts for 40% of the total area, and the book stack area accounts for 25% of the total area, and its intelligence is in a leading position among domestic libraries.
April 25, 2001, Beijing Daily, page 11
At the end of 2008, the second phase of the first map and the Beijing Fangzhi Museum project started. In September 2012, the second phase of the first picture was officially opened to readers. According to the Beijing Daily on September 27, 2012, the fifth edition of the "Shoutu New Museum will open tomorrow" reported, after the opening of the second phase of the new Shoutu Museum, the total construction area of the first map reached 94,000 square meters, of which the new library is 57,000 square meters, which can accommodate more than 10,000 volumes (pieces) of literature, and 1 million books (pieces) can be borrowed, with a daily reception capacity of 20,000 people, ranking in the forefront of public libraries in the country.
Exterior of the Capital Library in 2011
It is worth mentioning that with the opening of the new library, new services such as automatic borrowing and returning of books, bookshelf navigation, and handheld library have also been opened at the same time. Through the handheld library, readers can query nearly 3 million bibliographic information in the city's public libraries on the computer, and then use the Beijing Public Library reader card (all-in-one card) to make reservations and renewals, and can also use the mobile phone scanning function to find which library their favorite books are in. In addition, readers can also query all public library resources in the city through the special search platform, as well as 50 thematic databases such as periodicals, newspapers, and e-books specially purchased by Shoutu.
September 29, 2012, Beijing Daily, page 7
In October 2013, the Beijing Fangzhi Museum, with a collection of more than 50,000 books, was officially opened, and the spacious and bright Fangzhi Museum borrowing hall and the rich Beijing Geography Exhibition were opened to the public free of charge at the same time. Here, readers can consult the most comprehensive and authoritative local history of Beijing.
The Internet seats are full, the reading seats are full, and even the information desk in the pilot hall and the leisure sofa in the corridor are filled with people holding books and reading...... According to the data, it has only been 5 months since the opening of the new museum, and the average daily number of readers has reached 12,000, and the number of visitors has reached 19,000 per day during peak hours such as weekends. This modern library has made more people fall in love with reading.
In 2012, readers applied for a library card at the Capital Library. (Photo: Dai Bing)
"One Library, Three Sites" provides a variety of modern readings
In recent years, Shoutu has made great efforts to promote the construction of library service system to provide readers with a diversified modern reading experience.
In 2021, the first picture Daxing Airport Branch Library was officially opened. It is the first public library in China to be located at a major aviation hub airport, and can provide free access to 12 hours a day for passengers, visitors and airport staff to and from the airport. After borrowing from the airport, readers can return their books at 388 libraries across the city, while enjoying a wealth of digital resources and offline cultural activities for free.
July 13, 2021, Beijing Daily, page 1
In the same year, the "Chunmingquan" reading space, jointly created by the Capital Library and Beijing Yanshan Publishing House, was opened. The space is located in the courtyard of the Capital Library, covering an area of nearly 1,000 square meters, with a collection of more than 10,000 books, opening from 9 o'clock to 23 o'clock every day, opening for one month, receiving more than 1,000 readers on average every day, and the highest reception volume in a single day reaches more than 2,000 people, many people like to come here to read at night.
In 2022, Shoutu will launch the "Reading and Enjoying Jingcai" online lending service platform to provide book express services for readers in the city. Readers can enter the "Reading and Enjoying Jingcai" online lending service platform through the WeChat official account of the Capital Library, bind the physical reader card, and then retrieve and borrow books. The online lending service supports all first-image Chinese books (including children's books) that can be borrowed externally, with millions of books. This makes the book "flow" and makes reading within reach.
At the end of 2023, the Beijing City Library, which is operated by Shoutu, will be unveiled. The library, also known as the "Forest Book Garden", has a total construction area of about 75,000 square meters, with 3 floors above ground and 1 floor underground, with a collection capacity of 8 million books and about 2,400 reading seats. There is the world's largest library reading room, the largest collection of intelligent three-dimensional books in China, the first comprehensive intangible cultural heritage literature reading space in China, the largest children's outdoor reading space in China and a rare professional art archive in China. So far, Beijing City Library, the site of the Shoutu Warwick Bridge and the Shoutu Daxing Airport Branch have formed a new service pattern of "one library and three sites".
December 28, 2023, Beijing Daily, page 9
The first picture of a hundred years, overflowing with the fragrance of books. With the continuous increase in Beijing's efforts to build a national cultural center, the future Shoutu will bring more and newer cultural experiences to readers.
(Source: Beijing Daily, May 16, 2024, page 10; Author: Jia Xiaoyan; Image source: original article with pictures; Source: Beijing News Group Graphic Database; The original text has been deleted. ）