Good call to give phone booths new lease on life

SIX PUBLIC PHONE booths in the Xuhui district of Shanghai have been transformed into reading booths, which is a good exploration of urban modernization. The Paper.cn comments:

Six public telephone booths in a conservation zone in Xuhui were recently launched as reading booths in a pilot project. People can still make calls in the renovated phone booths, but they are public reading booths where people can get books to take away and then return them when they have finished reading them. Readers can also participate in relevant book club activities through the official WeChat account.

In the pilot program the authority has placed some books introducing the history and culture of the district. More books are to be placed in the booths later.