Library highlights improvements in culture

Ti Gong

The continuous improvement of public cultural services is an important aspect of building a prosperous society in an all-round way. In Jiading, library is like an epitome of the changes in such services.

When the new Jiading Library on Yumin Road S. opened, it quickly became a check-in point of Internet celebrities, according to Huang Ying, director of the library.

It was also named the “most beautiful library of the year,” Huang said.

A year later, the Jiading Culture Cloud debuted. Five years after that, Jiading was rated “excellent” among the country’s demonstration districts for public cultural services.

In Jiading, reading has become more convenient and there are more ways to borrow and read books.

Huang launched her career in the old Jiading Library on Qinghe Road in 2007.

“It is a building nearly 30 years old, with an area of only 4,000 square meters. At that time, I was in the readers service department, commonly known as the lending counter, and I spent a lot of time manually scanning barcodes for readers to borrow and return books,” Huang said.

More to borrow

Huang found that people in Jiading have a natural passion for reading. Almost every morning, there are readers waiting for the library to open.

“At that time, the maximum number of books to borrow per reader was six. Many readers suggested increasing the number. They wanted to borrow more books at a time.

In 2011, the library introduced RFID wireless radio frequency technology, which has been used up till now, and raised the maximum number of books borrowed by every reader to 10. Many readers are very glad about that, no matter how heavy the books are, they would borrow them and return with the full load, according to Huang.

“I have witnessed the rapid development of public cultural services in Jiading in the past 10 years. During this period, I had the honor to participate in the construction of the new Jiading Library and participated in the launch of 12 community and town branches, 100 reading spots, five 24-hour neighborhood smart libraries and other service stations,” Huang said.

Culture cloud

The Jiading Culture Cloud is the first public cultural service cloud in the city. Since its debut in 2014, all the public cultural resources in Jiading are available on the platform, so that people can borrow books without leaving their homes.

Jiadingers’ earliest contact with the platform was from booking cultural activities online. At that time, weekend reading activities in Jiading Library, as well as cultural events in the district culture centers, museums and local communities and towns were very popular. Tickets available on the cloud were sold out in seconds.

“Information of cultural events can be obtained in real time, and the booking function saves the time of queuing for tickets, which greatly improves the enthusiasm of participating in public cultural activities,” said Zhou, a retired resident.

Since the launch of the cloud platform, Zhou has taken part in public cultural activities two or three times more than before. “In addition to obtaining information, users can also timely feedback through comments, which is very convenient,” she said.

The Jiading Culture Cloud also remotely connects the database with the online library. Registered readers can query professional information online.

Through several years of practice and efforts, Jiading Culture Cloud has gained a large number of fans. It not only maximizes the value of public cultural resources, but also makes public cultural services more accurate.

Libraries everywhere

Jiading has a wide area. Huating Town in the north borders Taicang City of Jiangsu Province, Anting Town in the west is close to Kunshan City, also in Jiangsu, and Jiangqiao Town in the south connects with Shanghai’s Minhang and Putuo districts. Jiadingers living outside of the center of the district used to complain that they are too far away from Jiading Library.

To solve the problem, Jiading launched the construction of community reading spots in 2006. After that, no matter locals or migrants, people flocked to the spots to read.

In addition, neighborhood libraries have been built throughout Jiading in recent years to further improve the layout of public reading services to meet the demand of residents.

The first 24-hour neighborhood library was put into use in January 2017 in the Juyuan New Area. Soon, 30 of such libraries offering reading services closer to the residents’ doorstep were built in Jiading which could also be used as a public space for cultural and leisure activities. At the same time, they are used to serve science and technology innovation and voluntary services.

Each neighborhood library has its own characteristic. One among them on Nanxiang Old Street, next to the Tanyuan Garden, is decorated in a traditional way.

Another one in Jiading New Town has turned itself into a secluded study environment like a paradise as it is surrounded by a grape park, an art center and a boutique hotel.

The neighborhood libraries have become a brand name of Jiading’s public cultural services.