"Beneficial Reading" in Beijing attaching importance to farmers' actual need

In the early morning on November 20, as soon as the Beijing book building was opened, a crowd of book buyers wearing green badges rushed to the bookshelves to choose books. A while later all their shopping carts were full.

These customers were more than 160 farmers from the suburbs of Beijing. They were buying books on behalf of the Beneficial Libraries in their villages. Among these purchasers, there were young village officers from college, village production experts, virtuous and hardworking aunts as well as vigorous old people. The book buying card in their hands had over 10,000 yuan in it, and they could buy books freely according to their needs.

"The farmers themselves have the final say on how to build the Beneficial Library." The secretary of Beijing Municipal Bureau of Press and Publication, Feng Junke said happily, "In the past, we sent books to farmers, but now the farmers can select books themselves. Now there is a high level of reading needs of farmers, they want to read many kinds of books, and sending them books can hardly meet their needs."

Numerous books were selected by those representatives, including books of fiction, recipes, computers, stock, farming techniques, mechanical maintenance and so on. Tian FengXiang, village officer from the college of Tongzhou District, Luo Zhuang village said: "Before coming, the villagers told me to buy some planting technique books and simple computer primers. Now I have picked all the books they want."

Beijing Book Building, serving as Beijing's "Beneficial Library" project designated procurement unit of publications, made excellent arrangements for coordination, selection, purchase, delivery and other services. In order to help the representatives of farmers to select appropriate books, the book store set up special zones, including the new arrival zone, best-selling zone, themed zone and so on. Sub-level guidance with focus was provided to the representatives.

This year, according to the "the farmers themselves have the final say on how to build the Beneficial Library" thought, 80 percent of the books in the newly built Beijing Beneficial Library were chosen by the farmers themselves. There are two forms of optional books. One is that the experts worked out a book list first and then the farmers selected books from the list. The other form is that the farmer representatives were organized to select books in the book store that won the government procurement bid.

This ground-breaking initiative that let the farmers themselves select books for the Beneficial Library has gotten a positive response from the farmers. Till now, the venue of the Beijing Book Building has received more than 500 representatives from more than 200 beneficial libraries in Men Tougou, Changping, Shunyi and other regions. 63,133 books of 61,207 kinds were selected at a total value of 1.85 million yuan.

By People's Daily Online