Li Juan has worked in Beijing's "Silicon Valley" Zhongguancun for nearly three years after graduating from Tsinghua University. She passes the National Library compound twice a day coming and going to her office, but in all that time she has never been to its hallowed halls.

"When I first came to Beijing from my hometown in Hubei Province, I was amazed by the titanic library. I guess it must have stacks of tomes piling all the way from the floor to the ceiling," said Li.

As a postgraduate student at nearby Tsinghua, Li ventured inside, but only once. She described how she was overwhelmed not by the rows and rows of books, but the crowds of visitors and seemingly endless waiting.

Li spent 30 minutes browsing through an index until a magazine on professional photography caught her eye. But then she had to wait an hour for a poker-faced librarian to bring her the magazine.

The experience left her appreciating her on-campus library, which she says is "more efficient and reader-friendly."

Mounting complaints

Li is not alone.

Many visitors to the National Library, the country's biggest, complain about its inefficiency. Some even question whether it is fulfilling its public duties properly.

With a history of 96 years, the National Library contains the world's largest collection of Chinese-language literature with more than 24 million works.

It also serves as a centre for compiling bibliographies, establishing a blueprint for digital libraries and library research.

The country's busiest library, it averages over 12,000 visitors a day and is open to those over 18.

But, complaints are soaring, from criticism of its cumbersome management system, inefficiency, high charges and occasional discrimination against lay visitors.

The library came under the spotlight recently after one seriously disgruntled visitor wrote a newspaper article about his experience in one of its 46 reading rooms.

Zhou Jiwu, a publisher from Guangdong Province, was required to pay 20 yuan (US$2.40) for a reader's card, 100 yuan (US$12) as a deposit and 5 yuan admission before he could enter the room, reported the Guangzhou-based Nanfang Daily.

But what infuriated him was to be told by a young librarian a book he had read two months earlier, at the library, was not available. The reason given was that "no such collection ever existed."

After trekking between the reading room, service centre and several departments for about three hours, Zhou, the deputy editor-in-chief of a publishing house affiliated to Jinan University, lodged a formal complaint to the management.

He finally got the book, well past 4 o'clock in the afternoon and an hour before the closing time.

In his defence and description of the function of the National Library, Chen Li, vice-curator, was quoted by the Guangming Daily as saying: "The major task (of the library) is to serve the State's legislature and decision-making purpose. It also provides services to all the libraries in the country."

According to Chen, serving the public is a sideline of the National Library and not its main role.

The library, meanwhile, is undergoing an unprecedented expansion of its facilities the second phase which is expected to be put into use in October 2007.

"The expansion will add 2,900 more reading seats and increase reader reception capacity by 8,000 a day," says a library issued news release.

Along with the second phase construction, the first-ever national digital library project is also planned, enabling readers to access its immense wealth of information and data via the Internet.

"The digital library will alleviate current pressure on the National Library, whose reception capacity cannot meet demand," said the release.

Wang Yan, a public relations official with the library told China Daily: "Basically, the service provided by the digital library will be free of charge to readers, except for some special items." She did not elaborate on those items likely to be subject to a charge.

Finding solutions

A law regulating and protecting libraries would help remedy problems at the National, suggests Wang Yuguang, director of the Information Management Department of Peking University.

"The National Library is different from public libraries. The former does not need to open fully to the public, while the latter should serve ordinary readers and provide a comfortable reading environment," said Wang.

A national library, as a book collection centre, should focus on collecting and storing the literature of the country. It should also compile bibliographies accessible to all the readers, promote the development of library science and conduct exchanges with foreign counterparts.

It would, Wang contends, be a huge waste of resources for a national library to close its doors to the general public. He suggests the National Library open on a limited basis to the public and certain groups, such as researchers, and set a ceiling for the number of daily visitors.

"Selective public access will ease the burden of routine lending to ordinary readers and save on human resources," he said.

Most ordinary readers can visit community or district libraries, which are both less crowded and more user-friendly.

Take Wang for example. He seldom visits the National Library, opting instead for his university library for both research or leisure.

"It takes only about five to 10 minutes in Peking University library to get a desired book, while at the National Library, it is not unusual to spend a whole morning struggling to get the right one," said the professor.

The campus library is also less noisy and less crowded.

Funding shortages

For many, finding a decent place to do some reading and have access to a range of material is a luxury. Zhang Shengyuan from Yuedu County, Qinghai Province said his local library has had no new books for years, according to a report by Xinhua News Agency.

A frequent visitor to the library, elderly Zhang is one of only a few "faithful" regulars. But he has read his way through its collection and is restricted to reading the few newspapers it keeps.

A recent survey conducted by the Qinghai provincial department of culture found that public libraries in three of its autonomous prefectures, three counties and one city had not purchased a single book in the past 10 years.

And book stocks at five county-level libraries have not been replenished for more than a decade.

Even the provincial capital's municipal library only has an annual purchasing fund of 20,000 yuan (US$2,400), that only just covers the cost of newspaper subscriptions.

The funding crisis is not exclusive to poorer western areas like Qinghai.

Statistics show that more than 600 out of a total of 3,000 public libraries in the country have no money to buy books.

Lack of funds has also led to substandard storage facilities and poor reading environment.

In some county libraries, books are piled in corridors, making them more likely to be damaged .

Officials from Qinghai's department of culture say more efforts will be made to raise funds to improve the current situation.

However, it would be difficult for readers in Qinghai and other western regions to expect any significant changes in the near future.

Attracting more readers

Readers in large cities and coastal areas are luckier since funding is not the main problem. Public libraries in those areas have their own crises - falling numbers of readers.

Wang said their visitor numbers have been declining in recent years.

The popularity of Internet and digital books is partly responsible, but the main reason people are staying away is failure to get in new books, unsatisfactory service and reader-unfriendly environments.

According to a recent nationwide survey, only 5 per cent of those polled have ever visited a library.

The number of registered readers across the country is 5.82 million, accounting for 0.47 per cent of the country's total population.

The annual circulation rate of 0.4 also shows that books in libraries lack popular appeal.

In Beijing, Chaoyang District Library, one of the largest of its kind in the capital, holds English salons every week as a novel way of attracting readers.

Shan Weiquan, a library staffer, said about 100 people attend the salon to practise their spoken English, mostly middle-aged and elderly people. College students and some expats act as language "teachers."

"It is a very helpful way to promote our library and attract more readers," said Shan.

One city's tactics

Zhu Junwei, from Wenzhou Municipal Public Library in Zhejiang, said her library has tried all sorts of tactics to lure readers in.

Renown for its booming economic success, Wenzhou's library has also fared well.

In the relatively developed coastal city of 1.57 million residents, the library has been receiving an average of 800,000-plus visitors annually in recent years, and its website 1.5 million hits last year.

One of the schemes in 2004 to draw in the public was the organizing of 83 lectures, covering politics, science, education, economics and literature, all of which were well received by locals who flocked to the 300-seat conference room at weekends.

To keep pace with the fast-changing book market, it purchased 33,530 new tomes last year and 5,969 discs of digital material.

All the 400,000 digital books are free to read in the library's computer rooms and staff are on hand to give free Internet skills training to those needing it.

Another initiative is the setting up of a special library focusing on the garment culture and industry, in co-operation with local trade associations. The library charges small and medium-sized local enterprises membership fees in exchange for the latest market information.

The innovative service not only increases the library's prestige, it also provides extra money to meet overheads.

Students and the elderly remain the two major age groups of readers, said Zhu.

"Migrant workers have been recently showing up at weekends. Few local young people show up though."

(China Daily 02/03/2005 page5)