Nantong Library, the predecessor of Nantong Library, was founded by Zhang Jian, a famous industrialist and educator in modern China, 19 12, which was closed in 1930s and 1940s. 65438-0952 Nantong Municipal Government decided to rebuild the library, allocate ancient books, purchase new books and reopen it. 1957, the municipal government leased the West Building of Haonan Bie Ye to the library and renamed it "Nantong Library". Guo Moruo personally wrote the name of the library. 1979 completed a comprehensive building with an area of nearly 2,000 square meters, and 1983 completed the Jinghai building with an area of 1500 square meters. This is the first special collection building for ancient books built by China Public Library after liberation. There are 60 staff members in the library, including 9 in-service and associate research librarians and 22 librarians, with college education or above accounting for 75%. There are more than 700,000 books, including 6.5438+0.6 million ancient books and 654.38+0.53 rare books. It receives 6.5438+0.5 million readers and nearly 500,000 books and periodicals every year. It is the city's knowledge and information center.