On the morning of April 20th, as the world celebrates the upcoming 29th "World Book Day," the Anhui Provincial Public Library Alliance launched its 2024 "World Book Day" and "Fragrance of Books in Anhui Reading Season" activities with an opening ceremony held in Yuexi County, known as the "City in the Clouds." More than 130 public libraries across the province participated in the ceremony, which coincided with the opening of the new Yuexi County Library. 

The event featured a video presentation highlighting the service achievements of the Anhui Provincial Public Library Alliance in 2023. Last year, the total collection of printed books and periodicals in public libraries across the province reached 42.877 million volumes, including 622,000 volumes of ancient books. The province's public libraries had 3.903 million registered readers; they welcomed 617.63 million visitors in 2023, with 30.426 million book loans; and organized over 39,000 various reader activities, attracting 10.315 million participants.

This year, the Anhui Provincial Public Library Alliance has centered its efforts around the theme "Appreciating Anhui Style and Enjoying Anhui Charm," planning a series of public reading activities that highlight Anhui's unique characteristics, demonstrate the synergy of the alliance, and provide joy through reading, allowing readers to experience the distinctive charm of Anhui culture. Key activities include: promoting and advocating the "Anhui Culture Reader" and organizing themed essay contests to showcase Anhui's outstanding contributions to the development of Chinese civilization; specially planning the alliance's "Voices of Jianghuai: Heritage of Literary Rhymes" recitation competition to promote the inheritance and development of excellent traditional Chinese culture and distinctive Hui culture through recitation; launching a series of promotional activities for the tenth anniversary of the alliance's establishment, such as the "City Read" book route collection, to disseminate a new image of libraries through fresh concepts, perspectives, and methods; collaborating with 15 provincial-level libraries along the Yangtze River to co-host the fifth "Storytellers Competition," aiming to explore and promote the cultural connotations of the Yangtze River culture; and partnering with libraries at all levels in the Yangtze River Delta to organize a "Beautiful Libraries" video collection, guiding the public into the "world of books." At the same time, various types of activities such as rural reading support, cultural assistance for the elderly and disabled, online reading experiences, and cultural tourism research services have also been successively launched.

The new Yuexi County Library was also officially completed and opened to the public on the same day. With a construction area of over 5,000 square meters and housing a collection of 160,000 books of various kinds, it meets the diverse cultural needs of different age groups, including reading, exhibitions, and lectures. As an advanced and fully-featured county-level library, it not only demonstrates the fruitful results of the county's commitment to fostering a culture of reading but also reflects the continuous improvement of our province's public library service network and the steady progress towards high-quality universal reading. During the opening ceremony, the Anhui Education Publishing House and Yuexi County also donated "Anhui Culture Readers" and local documents from Yuexi to various libraries.

Source: anhuinews.com