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Facilities guarantee knowledge nationwide

By LI HONGYANG | CHINA DAILY | Updated: 2022-11-24 09:03

Libraries are no longer places that villagers have to travel for hours to reach. Now, such facilities are available in all of China's larger villages, authorities said.

In an article published in June on the website of the China Press and Publishing Media Group, Liu Binjie, former head of the National Press and Publication Administration, said that over the past decade the farmhouse library project has established about 590,000 libraries nationwide, greatly raising the number of books available to local farmers.

In 2004, such libraries were piloted in Gansu and Guizhou provinces. Back then, the spaces were not necessarily large, just about 30 square meters for each facility holding about 1,500 books. Since then, the project has been rolled out nationwide, Liu said.

In a 2011 article, Yan Xiaohong, head of the Copyright Society of China, said books are indispensable to cultivate a new type of farmer, people who are "literate and able to manage a business".

"Watching TV and surfing the internet can help people obtain information quickly, while reading allows them to gain knowledge comprehensively and systematically," he added.

The libraries select books based on grassroots opinions, while experts in different fields and farmers' representatives review the selections. Usually, they include books in fields such as the law, business studies, healthcare, culture and children's literature.

"They do not have to be small booklets that are easy to understand. For example, dictionaries and literary masterpieces are a must. We need to get rid of books that are obscure and far removed from rural reality. China lagged behind in rural cultural life for decades, so rural residents enjoyed fewer cultural entertainments than people in cities," he said.

City dwellers have easy access to libraries, cinemas, exhibition halls and cultural activities, while people in the countryside can only sit out on the street to chat, or occasionally travel a dozen kilometers to watch a play, which is very unfair, Yan said in his article. In his article, Liu said that one of the biggest gaps between China's urban and rural areas is in the development of reading skills.

"Most people who are good at reading and studying have moved from the rural areas to cities. There are also such sayings as 'One university graduate can lift three generations of a family out of poverty', and 'Only capable and knowledgeable officials can help the whole village become rich'. Those are all about the power of scientific and cultural knowledge," he said.

Liu added that local governments can expand the functions of libraries according to demand, such as setting up postal points and delivery stations and opening a classroom to provide a place for "left-behind children" to study after school. In addition, they provide meeting places for writers and readers, and experts can train people in farming techniques and relate historical and local stories to spur their passion for reading.

In recent years, the project, which was initiated by the central government, has focused on four major regions: old revolutionary centers; places that are home to several ethnic groups; underdeveloped areas; and border localities, he noted.

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