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Why is it important to have a public reading space for children?

Why is it important to have a public reading space for children?

In the Changfeng riverside green space on the banks of Suzhou Creek, an arch "bridge" connects reading and the joy of growing up with the next generation of the city. This is the Changfeng Hall of the Shanghai Children's Library, which opened in July 2022, and the hearts of the children are longing. With a history of more than 80 years, the Municipal Children's Library has since opened a new model of synchronous operation of "one library and two sites" (Nanxi Hall and Changfeng Hall), and has also pressed the "fast forward button" for leapfrog development.

According to statistics, in the past two years, the library has circulated more than 10 million books, nearly 1.5 million people, held more than 2,100 colorful activities, and attracted nearly 5 million people to participate. Big hands hold small hands to spend a good time here, painting a soft and warm scenery in the city of love "reading".

Experts interviewed:

Wu Jianzhong (University of Macau Librarian, Former Director of Shanghai Library)

Li Xiaoming (Director of the Collection and Reading Department of the National Library of China, Director of the Children's Library of the National Library)

Yang Yanna (Director of Shanghai Children's Library, Secretary of the Party Branch)

Yin Jianling (Children's Literature Writer, Vice President of China Children's Literature Research Association)

Use reading to illuminate the path of children's growth

Why is it important to have a public reading space for children?

Q: As the earliest independent provincial children's library in China, what kind of development has Shanghai Children's Library experienced?

Yang Yanna: According to the archives, the history of the Shanghai Children's Library can be traced back to the establishment of the first private children's library in China, the Shanghai Children's Library, in 1941, which was initiated by Mr. Ying Yongyu, who was working in the Sihang Savings Association at that time, and raised funds from the Shanghai Office of the Salesian Association and other organizations. In the twenties and thirties of the twentieth century, children's book publishing in Shanghai flourished and was quite large-scale, but the quality was uneven. In order to provide children with excellent reading materials, Ying Yongyu sent a letter to the Preparatory Committee for the 9th Children's Day celebration in Shanghai in the name of his eldest son Ying Chungao and his second son Ying Chuntong: suggesting the establishment of a children's library. The initiative has received an enthusiastic response from all walks of life. Chen Qingshi, a well-known vocational educator, published an article entitled "Why We Should Set Up a Children's Library in Shanghai", saying: "Shanghai will have a large-scale children's library in the future, which is not only the happiness of Shanghai, but also the glory of the whole country and society. On July 12, 1941, the Shanghai Children's Library was officially opened at No. 13 Dahua Shopping Mall on Jing'an Temple Road (now Nanjing West Road), and also set up "book circulation stations" and roving library carts in various districts to provide group lending services for schools and institutions such as Zhu'an Primary School and Tushanwan Orphanage.

In 1952, the board of directors of the Shanghai Children's Library petitioned the Shanghai Municipal People's Government to take over the management and named it "Shanghai Children's Library", which was directly under the leadership of the Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Culture at that time. In 1953, it moved to No. 1647 West Beijing Road. In 1958, it moved to No. 962 West Nanjing Road. In 1960, it was incorporated into the Shanghai Library as its children's branch. In 1987, it resumed its independent establishment. In June 1980, Song Qingling, vice chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, was invited by all the staff of the library to personally inscribe the name of the library - Shanghai Children's Library. The library also takes Soong Ching Ling's "All for Children, for All Children" as its service tenet, bringing the joy of reading and the guidance of knowledge to generations of Shanghai children.

During the "13th Five-Year Plan" period, under the great attention of the Municipal Party Committee and Municipal Government, under the guidance and promotion of the Propaganda Department of the Shanghai Municipal Committee of the Communist Party of China and the Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Culture and Tourism, the new Shanghai Children's Library (Changfeng Library) was officially approved and started construction. On July 19, 2022, Nagafukan was officially opened. The "Nanxi Pavilion" at No. 962 Nanjing West Road and the "Changfeng Pavilion" at No. 2500 Guangfu West Road have a total area of 20,000 square meters. So far, the Shanghai Children's Library has become the largest independent children's library in China and the largest collection of children's publications in the country. This is not only an important milestone in the history of the development of Shanghai Children's Library, but also contributes to the construction of Shanghai as a "scholarly city" and a child-friendly city, and also adds new scenes and new connotations to the high-quality development of public cultural services and the construction of Shanghai as an international cultural metropolis, which is a vivid embodiment of Shanghai's in-depth practice of the important concept of a people's city.

Wu Jianzhong: The formation and development of the Shanghai Children's Library is related to the city's unique regional history and culture. When I was a child, I liked to run to Nanjing West Road, because there are Yifeng model airplane stores, children's bookstores, Xiangyang children's goods stores, etc., which is a famous children's cultural area in Shanghai. As a non-profit cultural institution, the Shanghai Children's Library plays a core role in it, and is a place that children in the city yearn for, like a lighthouse that illuminates the road of children's growth with reading, and has influenced generations of aspiring newcomers.

It's not just about borrowing and returning books, it's about character development

Why is it important to have a public reading space for children?

Q: In recent years, the advancement of digital technology has made the access to information more diverse, and the subjects of reading supply are also very diverse, why do we need public reading spaces for children and teenagers?

Wu Jianzhong: IFLA's new Public Library Manifesto, released in 2022, states that it is necessary to "focus on cultivating and strengthening reading habits from an early age", and through reading, "provide opportunities for personal innovation and development, stimulate imagination, creativity, curiosity and empathy", and elevate library children's services from general reading activities to the height of personality development. From toddlers all the way to adolescence, children's reading varies widely and can even be broken down into grades. To this end, children's libraries not only need to be different in the allocation of resources, but also need to have certain professional training for librarians engaged in services, and also assume the function of national or regional children's reading coordination centers.

Li Xiaoming: Children's libraries are important places to promote children's reading, and play an irreplaceable role in creating a social reading environment and cultivating children's cultural self-confidence.

For children and teenagers, public reading spaces are safe, comfortable, and multi-functional, helping them to explore and learn with more peace of mind, and to exert positive behavioral initiative. Taking the children's library as an example, which specializes in providing reading and cultural services for children, the rich paper literature resources and physical space provide a sense of touch, cultural atmosphere and belonging that cannot be replaced by digital reading, helping young readers improve their concentration in reading and develop immersive reading habits.

In addition, the children's library also has the social attributes of public space, and is an important place for young readers to carry out interpersonal social behaviors, and plays an important role in the value of social field. Coming to the library to read and participate in activities with other young readers can help to increase children's willingness and behavior to participate in social activities, and promote their growth.

The independent provincial children's library has a unique professionalism and standardization, and is leading and exemplary in the whole region and even the whole country. For example, with more than 80 years of development history, the Shanghai Children's Library continues to innovate service measures in the new era, and has developed and launched the "Reading Service Guide for Children's Libraries in Shanghai", which not only standardizes children's services in Shanghai, promotes the development of children's services, but also provides a model reference for the standardization of children's services across the country. The Hunan Provincial Children's Museum has given full play to its local leading advantages, and has continued to carry out the "Provincial Children's Reading Activities" for decades, through the implementation of the provincial, municipal, state, district and county levels, focusing on a theme every year, an activity form every year, and a centralized display and summary evaluation every year, so as to improve the service quality of minors in the province, and now it is committed to promoting the development of reading promotion projects such as the integration of culture and tourism. Chongqing Children's Library has created a brand service of "Children's Reading and Children's Enjoyment" for children with special needs, and has continued to carry out targeted and active push services for many years, and has made fruitful explorations in improving the equalization of public cultural services and protecting children's rights and interests.

Yang Yanna: First, one of the important characteristics that distinguishes children from adults is that they have not yet formed a stable outlook on life, world view and values, and the library is an ideal public space, where a large number of free literature and information resources can guide them into the world of others, step through untouched places, feel diverse emotions, greatly enrich children's spiritual world, and expand their thinking space.

Second, the beautiful space of "both internal and external cultivation" and "talent and appearance" can attract more parent-child families to pay attention to, understand and enter the library, and provide them with a more warm reading and aesthetic education environment. In 2023, the Changfeng Branch of Shanghai Children's Library won the "Most Beautiful Public Cultural Space Award" and the "Excellent Operation Award" in the Yangtze River Delta and some provinces and cities across the country, with 710,000 circulation and nearly 5 million books borrowed and returned in the same year. It is worth mentioning that the number of library cards for infants and toddlers under the age of two has increased dramatically, and children in the future will know how to use library resources and how to communicate and share in public spaces.

Third, today's children's public reading spaces are becoming more and more "child-friendly" and pay more attention to the actual needs of children. For example, the hierarchical and age-specific functional settings of the Changfeng Hall of the Shanghai Children's Library, the "Sky Drawing Board" on the top floor of the outdoor corridor, the transparent and visible "Book High-speed Railway" self-service book return system and other smart reading spaces and scenes, and the new reading modes such as "+ music", "+ aesthetic education", "+ architecture" and "+ tourism" for children's reading characteristics are all deeply loved by children.

Build a digital, intelligent, professional, and diversified service matrix

Q: In the era of all media, what kind of children's library is just needed?

Li Xiaoming: The promulgation of a series of policies, such as the Public Library Law of the People's Republic of China, the 14th Five-Year Plan of the People's Republic of China, and the Program for the Development of Children in China (2021-2030), has brought the children's services of mainland public libraries to a new stage of development. How to construct digital, intelligent, professional and diversified children's service content is a topic that needs to be explored by children's libraries in mainland China.

Nowadays, the service content of the library is being digitally transformed, and on the basis of the traditional service business, artificial intelligence, omnimedia, cloud computing and other technologies are used to manage and utilize cultural resources more efficiently, so as to provide more accurate service content for children and teenagers. In addition, we will carry out online and offline reading service projects to break through the physical space of children's halls and provide children with a wider range of resource entry points and more flexible reading participation methods and scenarios.

Whether it is literature resources or reading promotion, children's libraries should establish a professional and standardized service team to provide young readers with cultural service content that is close to children's psychology, in line with children's development characteristics, and meets the needs of children's reading and space use in the new era, and at the same time carries out in-depth and wide-ranging children's reading research.

Children's libraries can carry out integrated expansion services, from an international perspective, unite resources from the library, education, and publishing circles to promote the dissemination of children's excellent cultural resources and the sharing and publication of achievements, so as to enrich children's library experience.

Wu Jianzhong: Over the past 80 years since its establishment, the Nanxi Branch of Shanghai Children's Library has made remarkable achievements in children's lending and extracurricular training, and has always been at the forefront of the national children's library field, but due to space and equipment constraints, many innovative businesses are difficult to carry out. Changfeng Museum has given Shanghai Children's Library an opportunity to develop by leaps and bounds, and its new exploration of the trinity of "Happy Learning", "Happy Enjoyment" and "Happy Creation" has set a model for the innovation and development of children's librarianship, organically integrating all kinds of children's information services, rather than books to books and activities to activities. "One hall and two sites", two-way echo: with its geographical advantages, Nanxi Pavilion attaches more importance to the cooperation and sharing of surrounding children's facilities and services, and makes the original projects and services more high-quality and more refined; The Changfeng Pavilion takes advantage of the advantages of space and modern facilities to expand more innovative projects and services. "One library, two sites" is not just one more building, but also a solid foundation for moving towards a world-class children's library through resource reorganization and transformation.

Yang Yanna: In the new era, Shanghai Children's Library adheres to the principle of "people-centered", and is committed to becoming a new landmark of Shanghai's cultural venues that benchmark against world-class cities, and helping to build a best practice place for Xi Jinping's cultural thought.

The first is to build a global children's reading service system. The small system is the ontology of the children's library, "two offline sites + a cloud study room + N service points outside the library (Mibao Book House, Mibao Book Station, Mibao Book Car)"; The system is led by the Municipal Bureau of Culture and Tourism, and the Shanghai Central Library, districts, and towns jointly promote the construction of 100 "New Reading Spaces in Child-Friendly Cities", so that children and parent-child families can access public resources more conveniently and effectively through the improvement of grassroots children's reading service spaces, literature resources, and reading activities.

The second is to focus on the organization and disclosure of high-quality collection resources. Every year, 100 themed bookshelves are launched, the "Happy Cloud" digital reading platform is created, and the theme recommended book lists such as traditional culture bilingual book lists and solar term book lists are developed. Jointly released the 2023 "Four Seasons Children's Reading" Autumn Booklist with the Children's Library of China; An immersive reading space for children's writers was opened in the Nanxi Pavilion, and an exhibition of Ren Rongrong's life and works was launched, such as "Starting from My Childhood". Focusing on the special collections, bilingual reading clubs, centennial children's book fairs, etc.

The third is to develop "reading +" integrated reading promotion. From the content point of view, there are small seed reading, parent-child reading voice file collection, as well as "reading + popular science, + history, + nature, + rule of law, + aesthetic education, + calligraphy and painting, + tourism", etc., as well as knowledge experience activities around library architecture and operation. In terms of form, lectures, exhibitions, competitions, trainings, reading sessions, traditional culture experiences, recording experiences, AI experiences, etc. are organized. From the perspective of cooperation subjects, it has carried out diversified cooperation with cultural venues, schools, publishing houses, and international children's book fairs.

Fourth, strengthen high-efficiency all-media communication. According to the audience characteristics and communication characteristics of different channels and platforms, customize reading promotion content and communication forms, and set up new media columns such as "Baby Says Solar Terms" and "Librarian Says". Carry out a series of themed reading activities at important nodes such as World Book Day, Public Library Service Publicity Week, Children's Day, winter and summer vacations, traditional holidays and the 24 solar terms, and disseminate them on all media platforms to continuously expand the scope and influence.

With literacy education as the mainstay, we should truly implement child-friendliness

Q: In the face of the new needs and expectations of children's readers, in what areas is there still room for improvement in children's public reading services?

Yang Yanna: In 2023, the Shanghai Children's Library conducted a reader service survey, and the results showed that readers hope that the reading environment will be more open, environmentally friendly and warmer, that the literature resources will be richer, more diverse and of higher quality, that reading activities will be more convenient and extensive, and that they will have more experience and participation, that the library will recommend books for children, and that the library will organize more reading sharing sessions and hands-on activities, etc., which are in line with the requirements of high-quality development and high-quality services of public libraries.

I believe that in the future, children's reading services in public libraries should further strengthen the child-friendly perspective and truly implement the concept of child-friendliness. It is necessary to focus on the following three aspects: building new child-friendly reading spaces and new scenes, and better optimizing the children's reading environment; Strengthen the organization and disclosure of high-quality literature resources to better protect children's reading rights; Carry out diversified reading promotion from the perspective of integrated development to better help children's growth and development.

Yin Jianling: I have been to many children's libraries at home and abroad, and what attracts them is not only the unique hardware design and rich and diverse collections, but more importantly, they have their own characteristics in terms of children's book research, reading guidance, and reader services. For example, the International Youth Library in Munich, Germany, has opened a number of exhibition areas of different sizes, and regularly holds exhibitions on various themes. Since 1959, with the support of the Germany Foreign Office, the museum has set up an international scholarship program to accept about 15 researchers of children's and young people's literature from all over the world for a three-month research study in the museum. During this period, each researcher is required to complete the corresponding research project and obtain the corresponding research results report. Since the 70s of the 20th century, the library began to compile the "White Crow" world children's literature book selection, by the librarians, language experts according to strict literary standards, the library received from all over the world from the world of the original books to select the year, and finally produce a book list. Since the 90s of the 20th century, there have been four small museums for children's literature writers and illustrators...... It is these special projects that have made the International Youth Library in Munich, Germany, a worldwide reputation.

Shanghai Children's Library has the largest collection of imported original children's books in China, and is also the oldest children's library in China. For example, give full play to the professional advantages of librarians and compile objective and authoritative reading recommendations. Pay attention to the reading needs of a wider range of people, including children with disabilities, and develop new forms of services. The study of Chinese children's literature and writers is relatively weak, and the Shanghai Children's Library may be able to develop its professional literature characteristics, so that researchers can find relevant historical documents, reference books, monographs, professional journals, papers and newspaper clippings at home and abroad. This will fill the gap in related fields in China and is of epoch-making significance for the combing of Chinese children's literature.

Wu Jianzhong: In the past, children's libraries or reading rooms were built to allow more children to read and borrow books, but modern children's libraries emphasize exploratory learning and put information literacy, media literacy and digital literacy education in an important position. It is a qualitative leap from the traditional borrowing service to the literacy education of the new era, and a lot of exploration needs to be done. First, it is necessary to pay attention to the improvement of comprehensive literacy, not only to equip children with all kinds of world classics and recommended reading materials that children must read, but also to cultivate children's ability to make full use of various media tools and obtain external information resources. Second, it is necessary to strengthen the cultivation of innovation ability, so that readers can learn to learn and create through the resources and tools provided by the library, and improve their resilience to acquire knowledge and solve problems in various complex environments through the organic combination of learning ability and creativity. Third, it is necessary to promote the research of literacy education, from the study of dyslexia to the study of media use, there are many topics that need to be overcome, and I hope that the Shanghai Children's Library will have a new leap.

Why is it important to have a public reading space for children?