As a well-known institution in China, Xinjiang University often accepts books donated by all walks of life in order to increase the number of books collected, which largely solves the problem of insufficient collection of books in the library. Teacher Wang of the school library said that how to improve the utilization ratio of books purchased and donated is a common problem. Xinjiang University Library cherishes the donated books it receives. After the books are in place, the library staff will carefully sort, classify and catalog them just like buying books. They have also done a lot of work to improve the utilization rate of donated books. Some book donation activities are very flexible in planning. For example, the publishing unit that donates books gives the catalogue in advance, and the recipient is free to choose. Therefore, the teacher in charge of selecting books will make a full investigation and collect opinions in school in advance, carefully select each kind of books according to the reading hobbies and reading conditions of teachers and students, and bring a large number of excellent and applicable books back to school. Teacher Wang said that the quality of books is always the key to improve the utilization rate. Therefore, the school library has been strictly controlling the quality of books, whether purchased or donated.
Donating books is more important to the No.1 Middle School in Wuxiang County, Shanxi Province. As the only full-time high school in the county, the collection of books in the school reading room is only 1 000, 80% of which are old books during the Cultural Revolution. The obsolescence and lack of books have seriously affected the improvement of school teaching level. President Yinli Hua said that the school attaches great importance to books donated by all sectors of society. After receiving a large number of donations, it invested a lot of money and manpower to expand the original reading room into a library. The main task now is to greatly improve the utilization rate of the library and give full play to the due role of donated books. To this end, the school has formulated a series of measures. The first is to strictly control the quality of books. Even donated books should be kept healthy and positive, and unqualified books should be eliminated as soon as possible. The second is to stimulate students' desire to read. Therefore, we should simplify the borrowing procedures, implement open-shelf borrowing and extend the opening hours. Third, the library should find books for people, find people for books, fully tap the use value of donated books, and do everything possible to convey book information to students in time. Fourthly, it is necessary to guide students' reading behavior and provide high-quality reading guidance, which will play a positive role in maintaining students' lasting reading interest and achieving good reading results. In addition, the library can consolidate and improve students' reading performance by organizing reading activities, so that more students can get close to books. President Yin said that a series of projects launched by the school are aimed at making hard-won books reflect value, not only as decorations, but also worthy of the hearts of many generous publishers and individuals.
Raise public awareness and strengthen standardized management.
-Guo Bin, President of the National Federation of Small and Medium-sized Public Libraries, talks about book donation.
Our reporter Tao Yuanyuan.
When the reporter interviewed Ms. Guo Bin, president of the National Federation of Small and Medium-sized Public Libraries, she had just returned from Zuoquan County, Shanxi Province and donated more than 2,000 books to the old revolutionary base areas. This trip to Shaanxi, especially the Heart-to-Heart Family Library in Matian Town, Zuoquan County, impressed Guo Bin deeply. "Heart to Heart Family Library" was founded by Zhang Xiaobao. He worked as a teacher for 10 years and worked in the army for many years to change the poverty in his hometown. At present, the library has nearly 20,000 books. Although the collection of 20,000 books is quite large for a private library, it still puts the survival and development of the library in a dilemma, so Zhang Xiaobao, the curator, came to Beijing alone for help. It is said that in order to save money, he just walked from Beijing Dabeiyao to the West Station. Faced with this commendable spirit, several libraries, including Beijing Xicheng District Library and Dongcheng District Library, decided to donate books to Heart to Heart Family Library. According to Guo Bin, when the local people in Matian heard the news that Beijingers donated books to the people in the old areas, they were overjoyed and rushed to tell each other.
Guo Bin said that there are many kinds of libraries in society, including public libraries, private libraries and private libraries. It is necessary for all sectors of society to donate books to these libraries. The form of book donation is very common in foreign countries and should be promoted continuously in China. In southern China, there are many cases of overseas Chinese donating to libraries, but some have names and some don't. Not long ago, Mr. Shi Jingyi, a famous Hong Kong person, also donated to libraries in many cities and counties in Guangdong Province, which was welcomed by the library community. She said that the development of cultural undertakings depends on all social resources, not necessarily the help of the government, and enterprises and individuals should be encouraged to make more contributions to public welfare undertakings.
Due to various reasons, China paid insufficient attention to cultural public welfare undertakings in the past. In contrast, foreign supporting policies and mechanisms are much more perfect. At present, the state has also issued many corresponding policies to encourage various enterprises and foundations to donate books to libraries, but there are still many problems and the channels are not very smooth. According to Guo Bin, book donation is very common in some areas of China, while libraries in some areas are not managed at all. In this regard, some trade associations should give full play to their role and participate in library management. Local associations can be fully responsible for finding out how many poor libraries there are in this area, and then manage and help them in a unified way. For example, she said that the Health Industry Association has done a good job in participating in relevant management, with a sound mechanism and high prestige, which is an inspiration to the Library Association. China's library association started late. Although it has developed rapidly in recent years, its strength as a trade association is still insufficient. In some places, library associations exist in name only and have no effect, which hinders the development of local libraries. In foreign countries, trade associations actually play a supervisory role. For example, the American Chinese Library Association is evaluating librarians this year. This kind of thing can't happen in China, so our shortcomings are obvious.
Of course, we should also see that the state and government pay more and more attention to libraries, and all provinces regard libraries as cultural windows. Although it is still difficult to carry out cultural construction in some remote areas, it has been significantly improved in some large and medium-sized cities. Guo Bin told reporters that the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Culture has made great efforts in the library, and the work it has done is unprecedented. They have equipped each grass-roots library with a Buick land official warehouse car, which is specially used for the library to carry out distribution work, which was unimaginable in the past. In addition to increasing investment in cultural public welfare undertakings, we should also raise people's public awareness. At present, many universities have set up public courses, and social media are gradually increasing their publicity and calling for the awakening of public awareness.
In addition, the reporter also learned that many enterprises and individuals who want to donate money to the library also have their own troubles, such as not knowing what the library really needs. In this regard, Guo Bin believes that in the future, we can learn from other ways of donation. On the one hand, books can be donated to libraries, on the other hand, they can also be donated to local trade associations, which undertake various obligations such as distribution. She said that in fact, many units and individuals want to donate to the library now, just because the supporting policies and management regulations can't keep up, which limits the donation activities. In some places, there are repeated book giving, too many copies and unnecessary books, which puts forward further requirements for the standardized management of local libraries and trade associations.