Libraries are busting out all over. We’ve blogged about the Little Free Library in Cambridge as well as Sam and Leslie Davol’s uni, which got invited to Kazakhstan — not to mention a library housed in an unused pay phone shelter.
Now it seems that a subway system in China is getting into the act.
Writes Zhang Kun at China Daily, “Shanghai’s Metro Line 2 is turning a new page with a library taking literally an online approach. Passengers will be able to select a book at one station, and return it to any of the other stations with customized bookshelves.
“Readers do not have to pay a deposit or any rent for the books and magazines they take. Instead, they are encouraged to donate 1 yuan (16 US cents) to charity at the bookshelf.
” ‘Now you can read a real book, rather than staring at the cellphone through the metro ride,’ said Zou Shuxian, a spokeswoman for the Aizhi bookstore, which initiated the project jointly with Hujiang.com” and the Metro Line.
“The Chinese Academy of Press and Publication released a survey recently that said the general public between the ages of 18 to 70 read 4.39 books in 2012, much fewer than in Western countries.”
The library “has been a resounding success with office workers. Waiting lines have developed during rush hour. … All the books have green tape on the cover to inform people about the program [and] to remind people it is borrowed and should be returned.”
I myself find it essential to have a book with me whenever I take the subway, but that’s largely because I ride the oldest system in America and it’s always breaking down.
My husband, who lived in Shanghai for about a year, says subways there are fast and efficient. I don’t think book lovers will have time to finish their books before their last stop. A lot of green tapes will be going home with commuters. You can’t keep a book lover down.
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