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Pudong to host major library convocation
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The Pudong government is co-organizing next month’s Chinese Library Annual Conference, which draws both national and international attention. Qu Zhi takes a read of the situation.
While many libraries in Western countries are having to fight for their lives in the age of digital media and budget cuts, Shanghai’s 237 public libraries are attracting millions of readers and growing strong.
Many readers are drawn to the Pudong New Area’s advanced, three-year-old library, one of the system’s crown jewels, and the district government is hosting a major national library conference that draws international attention.
The 2013 Chinese Library Annual Conference will be held in Pudong on November 7-9 and include exhibitions, academic symposiums and forums to communicate and exchange the ideas on the future development and possibilities for libraries.
The conference, which draws the attention of international experts and vendors, this year will launch an international exhibition hall to showcase participating institutions that are influential in their fields.
Libraries are back on urban agenda in Shanghai with increasing number of readers each year. Last year, there were 30 million readers in libraries in Shanghai, while as of September this year, the number was up by 2 million.
The conference, built around the theme “Literary China: Reading Leads the Future,” will bring together 3,000 professionals, cultural figures and publishers related to the library field.
Meanwhile, ordinary readers can meet their favorite authors or professionals to explore new possibilities in reading. They can also go to the exhibition to capture the future trends in libraries.
The exhibition will be held at the Shanghai World Expo Exhibition & Convention Center (1099 Guozhan Rd), covering an area of 25,000 square meters. It will be divided into a corporate area, a theme area, an international area, a theme book area and an interaction area.
The theme area will showcase a series of books, magazines, young adult books, electronic reading machines, educational software to stationery, and multimedia to printed items. Participants include big publishing houses in China, reading room design companies and other organizations that deal with the relationship between reading and space.
The area is focused on culture-sharing and the public is welcome to get involved and offer advice. A group of public electronic reading rooms and digital libraries will be set up for reader interaction.
“International” is the key word of this year’s Chinese Library Annual Conference, says an official of the organization team who declines to be named.
In the international area, participating corporations represent leading forces in the international market, including Sirsi Dynix, an international library system provider; Cengage Learning, a world leader in providing teaching, learning and research plans; Igroup, an influential provider of academic research consultation in the Asia-Pacific area, and Taylor & Francis, the largest publisher of academic journals, books and references.
Most of these enterprises are coming to the annual conference for the first time. Plus, professional institutions and publishing houses will also be joined by the American Library Association.
Together, they hope to stimulate more ideas to extend the function of libraries and create derivatives for libraries in an artistic way to raise the interest of the public, while improving the quality of libraries.
Academic conferences will be held among renowned figures in the field both nationally and internationally, discussing the future of reading in a global setting.
The annual conference is composed of five themed forums and 29 branch academic discussions and will include 3,000 participants, including staff members, managers and scholars in the library field and representatives from related companies to share their insights in different fields that libraries encompass.
Informatization and digital reading as the new trend is another highlight of the conference. Leading corporations in building digital libraries are invited to showcase their latest achievements in the application of library technology.
These corporations include experts in developing software that quantifies digital information, IT devices for libraries and more high-end technology like the newly developed radio frequency identification for libraries. Forty-one companies will attend, covering the entire library field and upstream and downstream businesses.
During the annual conference, the Pudong New Area and Shanghai libraries will also hold a forum on digital reading, inviting publishers, Internet authors, librarians and representative readers to brainstorm on the issue.
The “Libraries in 2020” exhibition will take visitors to the future, displaying next generation technologies like auto-checkout, big data demonstrations, 3D-printing and gesture-controlled reading.
Pudong Library
The Pudong Library is a hexahedral building of six floors that looks like a giant bookcase. It is becoming one of the most visited and loved place by local readers.
Also, it is one of the crown jewels among the 237 public libraries in Shanghai.
The library, which opened in October 2010, has amassed a collection of nearly 3 million items. It opens daily to the public for 11 hours a day, 9am-8pm.
The library is located at 88 Qiancheng Road — take Metro Line 7 and get off at Jinxiu Road Station, and the library is not very far.
Pudong Library required an investment of 850 million yuan (US$139.6 million) and covers an area of 60,885 square meters with facilities including lecture room, dining area and café.
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