Yangzhou Library

Yangzhou Library

Yangzhou Library was established in March 1950. Its original location was at No. 349, WeiYang Road, and it is now situated at No. 466, Wenchang West Road, Yangzhou. It was reopened on October 28, 2010. The library features a unique artistic design, open spaces, smart architecture, and digital services, integrating harmoniously with the surrounding lake landscape and cultural facilities to become a new hub for urban high culture. As the largest public library and central library in the Yangzhou area, it has been designated as a National First-Class Public Library by China’s Ministry of Culture. It has also been honored with titles such as “National Advanced Collective in Cultural Work” and “National Civilized Library” awarded by the Ministry of Personnel and the Ministry of Culture.

The library building covers a floor area of 21,718.98 square meters and offers 800 reader seats. Floors B1 to 4 house various service areas including a paper document lending hall, an electronic document lending hall, a visually impaired reading room, a multimedia audiovisual room, a lecture hall, and an exhibition hall. The library houses a collection of approximately 1.3 million items, including 132,000 ancient books. Among these, 250 titles (5,531 volumes) are listed in the “National Rare Books Catalog,” and 75 titles are included in the “China National Rare Books List.” The collection is especially rich in historical and literary materials and local Yangzhou documents, featuring major works such as the Complete Library of the Four Treasuries (Siku Quanshu) and Mao Zedong’s Commentaries on the Twenty-Four Histories. The library has also developed specialized databases, including the “Yangzhou Local Documents Full-Text Database,” the “Yangzhou Intangible Cultural Heritage Database,” as well as additional thematic resources like the “Local Documents Bibliographic Database,” “Famous People of Yangzhou,” “Yangzhou Newspaper Clippings,” and “Yangzhou Local Laws and Regulations.”

Since opening free of charge in December 2008, the library had issued 81,000 library cards by 2015. In 2015 alone, it served over one million readers, lent out 1.208 million volumes of books and periodicals, conducted more than 50 research projects annually, answered over 3,000 inquiries, and hosted more than 100 public cultural events with a total attendance of over 100,000 people. The library also facilitates interlibrary loans with other public libraries across Yangzhou’s counties (cities, districts) and university libraries. In April 2015, the Yangzhou branch of the Chinese Government Public Information Integration Service Platform was officially launched, integrating, producing, and publishing over 17,000 government public information items from municipal-level government websites in Yangzhou. A special display shelf in the periodical reading room showcases publicly available information from 34 government departments, featuring 163 related documents for reader access.

Over the years, Yangzhou Library has focused on building distinctive service brands such as the “Weekly Listening” at Yangtu Lecture Hall, the “Weekly Viewing” Film Salon, the “Monthly Fresh” Exhibition Hall, the “You Choose, We Buy” book selection program, the Young Pioneers’ Reading and Essay Contests, library volunteer services, and the “Colorful Summer” youth summer activities series. These initiatives are known for their clear themes, innovative content, and diverse formats, attracting readers to discover, visit, and make use of the library. They have played a key role in promoting the “Bookish Yangzhou” initiative. The “Weekly Listening” program at Yangtu Lecture Hall utilizes social public resources by inviting renowned speakers from CCTV’s Lecture Room, such as Ma Ruifang, Yu Dan, and Wang Liqun, to deliver a series of lectures on topics like “How to Read Classical Masterpieces Today,” “Family Values and Precepts,” “The Hundred Schools of Thought in the Pre-Qin Period,” and “Classical Drama.” These efforts represent new approaches to guided reading. The “You Choose, We Buy” interactive activity engages different types of readers in the library’s collection development process, creating a “green channel” for communication between readers and the library, and exploring new models of socially-engaged resource development.

In recent years, Yangzhou Library has focused on its goal of transforming public libraries into “urban classrooms and citizens’ reading rooms.” To allow residents to experience the charm of “Bookish Yangzhou,” the library has innovated its service content and methods based on the principles of “rational layout, balanced development, comprehensive network, effective operation, and benefits for all.” It has built a four-in-one public library service system consisting of “main and branch libraries, mobile libraries, self-service libraries, and mobile app libraries.” Currently, the city library has established 16 branches, enabling unified procurement, cataloging, distribution, and inter-library borrowing and returning, thus creating a shared platform for reading and culture. It has set up 50 book circulation service points to provide convenient borrowing services for residents and accelerate the sharing and circulation of book resources. Additionally, four 24-hour self-service libraries have been built in Shengcheng Shijia Residential Area, the Library Square, Wenchang Square, and Songjiacheng Sports and Leisure Park, along with three urban reading spaces in Guangling New Town, Jienan Book House, and the Development Zone. These offer round-the-clock services including searching, borrowing, and returning, filling the gap in library services when the main library is closed. The mobile library service (via mobile and WeChat platforms) has also been launched, providing basic functions such as collection search, reservations, and consultations through mobile devices like smartphones and iPads, as well as personalized services such as access to digital resources and document delivery.