MORE than 48,000 readers were among the first to try out the newly opened Central Library on Yitian Road yesterday (July 12).

The Central Library, opened to the local readers at 2 p.m. with a grand opening ceremony involving national, provincial and municipal government officials, and curators from across the country.

The six-floor open-stack library with 19 individual reading rooms will be one of the few libraries across the country featuring high-tech and disabled-friendly devices.

As the first library on the Chinese mainland to use radio frequency identification, or RFID, it will allow readers to borrow and return books on their own, without the assistance of staff members. Librarian Lin Yingying demonstrated to reporters how to sort books using an RFID machine, the first in the country.

Mayor Xu Zongheng said at the opening ceremony that the Central Library can help raise the public's level of education.

Alexandra Wong, a Hong Kong resident, said: "It's a nice library. Equipments of the library are developed and convenient to use. The library can compete with Hong Kong Central Library. I notice that there are English newspapers available on the ground floor."

Readers are not required to present their library cards or ID cards for reading or using any library devices. "Unless they borrow books, video or audio materials from the library, or log in to the library's database from the Internet," said curator Wu Xi.

However, Xu reminded readers that the library will be open from 12:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. daily until the end of August.

"We need time to test the stability of the system, relocate other books from the old library during the trial period," Xu said.

The 2,500-seat Central Library is expected to be open 12 hours a day from Tuesday to Sunday in September. About 1.8 million books will be available to the readers, with 3,000 free Internet access terminals.

Editor: Wing