The Chengdu Library in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, has launched an innovative program, “Loving to read at home,” transforming the way people access books. This program is part of a broader trend in China where cultural consumption has become as convenient as ordering food online. This new service allows readers to select books through a digital platform and have them delivered directly to their doorstep.
This service, linked to the library’s official digital platform, offers an easy-to-use interface where readers can choose from a wide range of books for a nominal delivery fee. For just 6 yuan (84 cents), users can have one to three books delivered to them. Each user is permitted to borrow up to eight books at a time for a 30-day period.
The program collaborates with 22 public libraries around Chengdu, ensuring a comprehensive coverage across the city and its surrounding areas. In recent days, the service has seen a surge in demand, dispatching over 300 books to readers, with the farthest delivery being to Dujiangyan, located about 50 kilometers from central Chengdu.
Staff members, like Zhang Wenjuan, have adapted to this new service model, comparing the packing of books to the careful packaging of food in restaurants. The program boasts a collection of more than 20,000 books spanning various genres. Popular categories include history, fiction novels, and earth science, but the collection also features niche subjects such as philosophy, biology, linguistics, and agriculture, including works by international authors like French thinker Jean Baudrillard.
Cultural sociologist Xu Shuming noted the significance of this “online to offline” (O2O) approach in reducing the time cost for readers and making cultural consumption a more integrated part of everyday life in China. Xu sees this as a strategic step towards achieving China’s goal of promoting nationwide reading, leveraging the country’s strengths in the delivery and e-commerce industries.
The Chengdu Library is not alone in offering such services. The Zhuzhou Library in Hunan Province runs a similar program called “Flying books home,” and even eliminated return postage for readers in May to encourage more participation. In Beijing, the Chaoyang District Library offers a comparable service, praised by users like Jin Mengyuan for adding intellectual experiences to daily life.
Song Weiping, a cultural policy expert, linked this trend to broader national efforts encouraging public reading. The 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25) emphasized promoting “nationwide reading” and supporting the “Shuxiang Zhongguo” campaign, aimed at fostering a reading culture. As part of these efforts, initiatives like book fairs, construction of public libraries, improved reading services, and extending reading opportunities to remote villages have been undertaken.
China’s commitment to promoting reading is evident in its network of over 3,300 public libraries and more than 100,000 bookshops. The comprehensive reading rate in the country has increased from 76.3 percent in 2012 to over 81.8 percent, reflecting a growing interest in reading among the Chinese population. The introduction of library-to-door book delivery services is not just a convenience; it represents a significant step in cultural innovation and the advancement of literacy and reading enjoyment across the country.
READ MORE: