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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Tuesday, April 01, 2003

Official: China to Invest Heavily in its Libraries

China will go on investing heavily in its libraries nationwide, Vice-Minister of Culture Zhou Heping said on Friday during a meeting on library resource-sharing.


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China will go on investing heavily in its libraries nationwide, Vice-Minister of Culture Zhou Heping said on Friday during a meeting on library resource-sharing.

The State Development and Reform Commission plans to invest 100 million yuan (12 million US dollars) annually during the period from 2002 to 2005 to build libraries and cultural centers in counties across the country, Zhou said.

The Ministry of Finance will also increase annual subsidies to regional cultural services from the current 11 million yuan (some 1.3 million US dollars) to 30 million yuan (approximately 3.6 million US dollars) for the purchase and maintenance of library facilities and equipment.

According to Zhou, as of 2001, China had 2,696 public libraries manned with a combined staff of 48,600. Their collections jumped from about 306 million volumes in 1991 to 420 million in 2001.

Zhou attributed the rapid development of the public libraries to increased funding from government at all levels. For example, the government departments have increased the country's annual funding for the purchase of new books from 344 million yuan (41.45million US dollars) in 1991 to 1,800 million yuan (217 million US dollar) in 2001.

Zhou noted, however, that, as compared with international standards, which stipulate a ratio of one public library for an average of every 20,000 people, China's ratio of one library for every 459,000 people is far from adequate.

Meanwhile, he acknowledged, the funding for libraries has not been spent efficiently and the libraries across the country shouldstep up resource-sharing and information exchange, so as to avoid redundant construction.

Moreover, China still suffers a shortage of competent library managing personnel, the vice-minister of culture said.


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