Written by: Edited by Su Xin
Posted on: May 10, 2018 | 
| 中文
Digital readers gaining popularity in China
From ‘China Poems Contest’ and ‘Letters of Notes to Readers’, several cultural TV programs have won extensive attention in China, through TV channels and social media, with books on the same subjects getting popular too. “The Reader” has successfully gathered book-lovers in Guangzhou, Beijing, Hangzhou and Xi'an, etc. for book-sharing events through “the Reader’s Hall”, and its extended cultural product.
The beauty of classic Chinese poems has revitalized people's memories and affection for literature. Positive public feedbacks to these cultural entertainments can be regarded as a reflection of strong demands of society for high quality spiritual services and products.
With the rapid development of smart application of social media, people's reading habits have changed accordingly. As shown by a joint survey on reading habits carried out by Xinhuanet and Amazon.cn, more and more people have started using e-books as their daily readings, and digital readers have exceeded 300 million in China in 2017.
Affected by the new trend, business of real bookshops was greatly affected and they had to find breakthroughs with adaptive changes to meet various requirements from readers of current times. For example, the small but classic Sharing Bookstore, Moving Book Stations, and Take-away Books by orders, all inspired new interests on actual book reading rather than e-books.
Smart Reading Room is an easy APP. With a 99 RMB yuan deposit, one can get access to two books with price lower than 150 yuan in total simply by scanning a book-borrow bar code. This new sharing bookshop style was firstly put on trial at Xinhua Bookstore at Sanxiaokou, Hefei City, Anhui Province, but much earlier to this, Dayin Bookshop, a private bookstore in Shanghai, had readers with Shang Library ID card entitled to borrow any books sold at Dayin Bookshop.
Sun Bin was selecting books when the reporter met him at one container-shaped sharing bookstore at Xi'an. Sun said that reading was always his favorite but there were no bookstores or libraries around the place where he lived, so it was tough for him to find books he wanted to read for relaxation. In his mid-sixties, Sun has led quite a regular life after retirement, taking and picking up his granddaughter to school and playing cards with other members of the community activity center. With the establishment of the sharing bookstore, he got attracted to it and said "My playing mates thought I was missing, but actually I would come here for books." Sun smiled.
Many book fans have noticed that at the north end of Qianmen Street of Beijing, a hundred meters away from Zhengyangmen, there is a newly opened 24-hour bookshop: Beijing Pageone Bookstore. With a broad and bright reading area, high and lofty book shelves and a nicely designed space for readers to exchange, the bookshop quickly became a local spot. During day time it is a good venue for reading, exchanging salons and VR experiments but on a pleasant night, on its 4th floor rooftop, the Bookstore and its readers can watch on-line and off-line live shows for 24 hours connecting anyplace of the world which is a true and spectacular charm of the midnight bookstore.
The 24hours bookstore was no longer a new concept with 20 more similar stores operational in Beijing, Shenzhen, Qingdao, Hangzhou, Zhenzhou and Guangzhou ,etc. which are lit up for readers at nights, like a lighthouse guiding youngsters to their spiritual harbor late in the darkness.
"Hello, your order is on its way, please get ready to pick it up." This message isn’t merely for foodies at Jinan city, Shangdong province, but any bookworm and member of Jinan Library Reader’s Club can use the on-line service to “order” favourite books for borrowing or take-away purposes.
Traditionally, readers needed to visit the library personally and borrow the book after a procedure of serial number searching and form filling. Now, with the APP installed on their smart phone or pad, borrow requests of the reader are generated on-line and the librarian can find the book and deliver it to the venue asked by the reader. Through a text message, the reader can remind the librarian immediately after delivery is due.
"With the Self-service Bookcase, I can make my time for borrowing and returning books as per my own wishes, regardless of the opening hours of the Library". Madam Wang, a usual customer of the Yangpu District Public Library, returns the books in some simple steps through posted tips and renews her credits of the membership card. With the custom-tailored service, the library has successfully inspired local residents' interests in reading with a qualified reading experience.
After registering a Wechat public ID by scanning the bar code and downloading the APP, readers at Urumqi, capital city of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, can choose from a large variety of books and experience self-service of borrowing books. The first Community Self-service Children Library of Xinjiang came to the public in December 2017 at Xianghe Community of the city, attracting participants every day.
Installed inside of the newly-run Community Self-service Super Store the bookshop is welcomed especially by parents. Sun Yijia is a resident of Xianghe Community; she often takes her kid to come to the quiet corner of the store for a fun reading time after work. “It is really good and convenient" she praised.
Made of wooden book cases or converted from tree stools, the moving book cases are set up in public places where there are large numbers of people, such as parks, super markets and department stores and service centers or bus stops. At some of the venues, readers can borrow books after registering their IDs and then just have to scan the barcodes. However, the books need to be returned within one week to any venue. There are more than 300 cases of this kind around Urumqi city, praised by the citizens as moving bookcases.
In Beijing, a special reading promotion campaign was carried out by Beijing Subway Company, to encourage commuters to read books, while taking subways with regular and daily publicity of latest news and information of books. This created a healthy and inspiring reading atmosphere.
In Jiangsu, Reading Festivals were organized with coupons sent out to special groups of people, to ensure that the disadvantaged people could also benefit from the public culture improvement.
Kunming City of Yunnan Province has continuously held Sharing Books events, in which citizens offer their books to selected stops at public venues and exchange them with books being donated by others. Thus, a circle of book reading and circulating is formed.
In Wenzhou city of Zhejiang Province, a chain of public libraries with 27 shops and storage of 300,000 books are open for citizens 24 hours a day, with complete self-service facilities available for free.
Reading is a way of living, whether through e-books or paper books, as it brings peace and satisfaction to the mind.
Translated by Wu Jinying
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