Baiyun Library went into trial operation on April 23, the 26th World Book and Copyright Day. Liu Guohua, deputy head of Baiyun district in Guangzhou, attended the opening ceremony.

Baiyun Library went into trial operation in Apriland will open to the public in June. [Photo by Shi Jianhua/Baiyun Updates]

Baiyun launched preparatory work for the new library in 2016, when the Guangzhou government issued regulations on public library management and a construction plan for building Guangzhou into a “city of libraries”.

The library was designed by He Jingtang, an academician at the Chinese Academy of Engineering and a famous Chinese architect. With a total area of 8,200 square meters, including one underground floor and two above ground that are linked by circular stairs, the library has 500,000 books and provides 500 seats with an average daily reception capacity of 8,000 people. It also has a sunken plaza that can be connected to tunnels and subways in the future.

“The new library is located 200 meters from Xiaogang subway station. It only takes me a few minutes to walk there, a lot more convenient than before,” said a citizen surnamed Yu who has been a regular visitor of the library since 2005. Yu witnessed its relocation and upgrade and spoke highly of its development.

The refurbished library boasts a rich cultural atmosphere. Equipped with multiple theme zones, such as the humanities zone, tourism and leisure zone, aerospace zone and platform zone, the library features the unique history and culture of Baiyun district. Among all the zones, the humanities zone presents the folk customs of the district in an all-around way, and the library history exhibition hall shows its development of more than 60 years since first being established.

The library will allow 600 reservation spots per day during its trial operation. It also plans to arrange the first exhibition “travel with Biayun - the birth of the library” to review its development process with readers and fans.

A reader is using an intelligent bookshelf to borrow books. [Photo by Shi Jianhua/Baiyun Updates]

Apart from expansion of venue space and reception volume, the library has also introduced high-tech equipment. The adoption of senseless borrowing channels, intelligent bookshelves, book navigation devices and intelligent sorting robots, has greatly improved book-borrowing efficiency, facilitated accurate book-searching and assisted in library classification, providing convenience for both readers and library staff.

“Intelligent bookshelves not only enable us to accurately find books we want in any area of the library, it also provides service like online book reservation. We don’t have to go to the counter or search for self-service terminals to borrow a book,” a reader said.