Helen Deng

    THE sprawling Foxconn factory is far away from Shenzhen Library, but factory worker Li Ming doesn’t have to travel all the way to the city center to borrow books.

    A self-service book-lending machine was set up in the factory two years ago, allowing people to borrow and return Shenzhen Library books 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

    “It’s very convenient. With several clicks of the mouse I can easily request a book from the library’s Web site. Within 24 hours I’ll get a short mobile phone message reminding me to pick up the book at the self-service book-lending machine near my dormitory,” he said.

    Shenzhen has 160 self-service book-lending machines and 40 more will be set up by the end of the year, Shenzhen Library associate librarian Zhang Yan said. With the machines scattered through large communities, industrial parks, office clusters and transport hubs, reading has become a part of life for Shenzheners, including those who can’t afford to buy books and those who don’t have time to go to a library.

    The self-service book-lending machines are part of Shenzhen’s efforts to build a library system that’s convenient, free and open to all, Zhang said.

    Shenzhen began to build a “city of libraries” in 2003, when developing the economy was still the major goal of most Chinese cities.

    “Shenzhen’s economic growth leads most Chinese cities, but the city has a very short history. Money-worshipping and potentially harmful nouveau riche mentalities could grow in such soil,” Zhang said. “That’s why the city put so much effort into promoting reading — reading is a great way for people to find spiritual roots.”

    The city has built hundreds of libraries and held many events to promote reading, including Shenzhen Reading Month, an annual event that attracts millions of local participants each November.

    The efforts have proved to be worthwhile. The number of books lent out by Shenzhen Library, the largest library in the city, has more than quadrupled in the past six years. Last year, the library received 12,000 visitors daily. A total of 292,950 people used its digital resources, which can be accessed at home via the Internet.

    Library users include people with impaired vision. The library has more than 2,000 Braille books, and specially trained staff can help the vision-impaired use computers to select among them.

    “Our staff are very considerate people — they even offer to pick up blind readers from the Metro station,” Zhang said.

    The city has formed a complete network of public libraries. With 643 public libraries and 160 self-service lending machines scattered around the city, there is one public library for every 15,000 people in Shenzhen, Zhang said.

    The city is building a unified service platform for all its public libraries. As of April, the platform had been connected to 167 public libraries. That means readers can access the resources of all those 167 libraries with one library card.

    The city government is also considering construction of an intelligent book warehouse similar to those at Harvard University and the University of Chicago in the United States, Zhang said. The warehouse would be used for the overflow of books that can’t fit in public libraries. Patrons could select a warehoused book from computers. Some intelligent warehouses use robots to pull selected books from shelves.