The Pingtan Library has been graded as a second-class library during a national evaluation on public libraries.

The library, situated in downtown Pingtan next to the county government, was put into use in 2004. It now has a collection of books of more than 70,000, 36 kinds of newspapers, 296 kinds of journals and 526 copies of electronic literatures. It has opened seven reading rooms for both adults and children.

Since March 2011, the library was open to public for free, exempt from all previous charges services. Throughout 365 days of a year, people find no problem stepping into the hall to read or borrow books.

"Even if one hails from outside Pingtan, he can apply for a library card using his ID card. If he just wants look through books inside the library, he feels free to go around," introduces an employee.

"As Pingtan deepens reform and opening-up, it embraces a large number of external populations. We must ensure they can use the library's resources equally," said Ding Linxin, curator of the library.

"Sometimes we will host interaction events between the readers to boost service and resource sharing," he added.

To the convenience of readers especially those office employees, the library plans to bring in an intelligent lending management system that runs 24/7.

"They can operate on the system by themselves in need of borrowing and returning books," said Lin.

Edited by Chen Zhilin and Michael Thai