Service facilities of the library. The library provides a special place for readers to use the literature in the library. There was no independent reading room in early libraries, and usually only a few reading tables were placed next to or in the middle of the shelves. From 65438 to 0857, the circular reading room of the British Museum Library was opened, which separated the reading room from the stacks and became the reading room with the most seats and the best equipment in the world at that time. 1904, China Gu Yue library stipulated reading in 60 seats in the central hall downstairs, and actually became a reading room dedicated to readers. There is a clear boundary between reading room and stacks in modern libraries. However, with the change from heavy collection to reuse and the implementation of open-shelf lending system, it is more common to set reading tables in stacks and increase the number of books in reading rooms, and the equipment in reading rooms tends to be practical and comfortable.

Reading rooms in libraries are generally divided into three types: general reading rooms, professional reading rooms and reference research rooms. Ordinary reading rooms, sometimes called comprehensive reading rooms, have long opening hours and simple procedures. The school library also has a general reading room, which aims to provide students with a place for self-study. Usually there are no books or only a few newspapers and periodicals and commonly used reference books. The special reading room is set up to meet the different needs of specific readers, which is convenient for readers to concentrate on using a certain range of documents and for librarians to study specific readers and specific ranges of documents. Generally, it is set according to knowledge category, reader type, document type and language, such as social science new book reading room, teacher reading room, microfilm reading room and foreign language periodical reading room. Reference laboratory is a studio specially set up for experts and scholars to carry out scientific research activities. Generally on a smaller scale. The library collected the documents needed by Chen Fang for their exclusive use during the research period. In addition, some mass organizations and cultural institutions have set up reading rooms for the public to read current affairs newspapers and popular books.

In addition to the reading rooms where students study by themselves, all kinds of reading rooms have supplementary books (see collection agencies). When the open-shelf system is adopted, the layout of reading desks and chairs and bookshelves takes various forms according to different readers and management methods: ① Centralized, that is, reading desks and chairs are arranged in the middle or one side of the bookshelves, which can accommodate more readers and facilitate management, and are mostly used in ordinary reading rooms. (2) Decentralized, that is, reading desks and chairs are scattered between bookshelves, which can provide readers with a good reading environment and are mostly used in special reading rooms. (3) Stack style, that is, some reading desks and chairs are placed around the shelves of the stacks, which can accommodate more auxiliary books and is suitable for the literature retrieval room where readers can consult the literature in a short time.