IT’S no longer an urban privilege to read in a public library.

    In Qingdao, 750,000 books were distributed to thousands of Farmers’ Libraries across rural areas in Jiaonan, Jiaozhou, Pingdu, Jimo and Laixi on Dec. 13. The books cover a wide range in technology, culture, politics, economy, lifestyle, children’s literature and other subjects. More than 95 percent of the books were published in the past two years.

    The libraries also received 60 sets of mobile film facilities, each with a database of more than 1,000 movies or video programs. The databases will be regularly updated.

    A campaign was launched by the city government in 2007 to enrich the lives of farmers. Each library will have at least 1,500 books, 30 newspapers or magazines and 100 audio and video products.

    The city government has spent about 29 million yuan (US$4.4m) building 4,440 Farmers’ Libraries.

    (Chen Ting, Wang Ping)