Coverage Rate of "One-Card-Through" Service Reached 70%
| The "One-Card-Through" service provides readers with the possibility of borrowing or returning books in any member library with only one card. Within the last decade, the service has been extended from Shanghai Library and district libraries to community libraries, neighborhood service points, university libraries, governmental organizations and the Expo site. After unified planning, a layout was worked out with each district library featuring a different collection focus. Numerous new services were initiated meanwhile, such as mobile phone library, door-to-door registration service and online request for book delivery (to a designated member library/service point), all for the sake of increasing convenience on the part of readers. Currently, there are 175 member libraries/service points, i.e., 26 libraries and 149 grass-root service points, increasing the coverage rate of "One-Card-Through" service to 70%. In 2009, the number of registered readers reached 320 thousand, that of visiting readers 3.17 million (an increase of 25.7% compared with that of previous year), and the circulation 17.92 million (an increase of 19.5% compared with that of previous year). |