Nanhai District, Foshan is home to 3.88 million residents. Its first citywide reading festival is about to kick off, with a series of activities to be launched at 280 smart reading stations across the district.
Let us take a look at what makes these reading spaces—funded by the government and open to the public free of charge—so impressive.
Nanhai is a typical southern-China water town defined by its abundant rainfall, crisscrossing river networks, and lush forests. To provide a stable reading environment, the Nanhai Library launched a visionary project in 2013—the Reading Stations.
These luminous, glass-walled pavilions are spread across villages, parks, schools, and communities. Built with eco-friendly materials, they maximize natural lighting with full glass curtain walls. Their modular design helps to reduce environmental impact and land use.
A smart logistics system allows for intelligent book distribution, while a centralized monitoring platform enables 24/7 unmanned operation. Each station offers over 2,500 hardcopy books and 3,000 e-books, supporting self-service borrowing and return, catalogue search and reservation, and community activities.
Station locations are selected with extensive polling among residents, and book collections are updated monthly based on readers' needs. The stations also host over 130 activities each year, attracting more than 10,000 participants.
To date, 280 stations have been established in Nanhai, serving an average of 12,400 residents each. The project's book circulation rate has reached 195.6%—over three times higher than that of traditional public libraries.
Author: Chen Meng
Photo: Nanhai Library
