Innovated ‘Library +’-based Service Converging Libraries and Book-sellers
| Let’s borrow books from bookstores! – this is what is going on with a brand-new service nicknamed “Colorful Clouds” (彩云服务计划) initiated by the Inner-Mongolia Library, whereby people can borrow – by ordering any of commercially available books from the web portal of a bookstore through terminals such as smart phones; and the Library in turn, informed by the ordering message transferred by a customized, linked online service network, will buy and deliver the copy to the people who made the reservation. And the Inner-Mongolia Library is not alone – similar services are being underway elsewhere in China, including Qingdao and Hangzhou. In November 2016, the internet reading service platform “Qingdao Library Clouds (青云图)” went online as a result of the partnership between the Qingdao Xinhua Bookstore Inc. and the Qingdao Shinan District Public Library. And likewise it features retrieval by phone, online ordering and off-line distribution. Meanwhile the Hangzhou Library has succeeded in attracting a more diversity of users through its own online borrowing service launched on its official WeChat account, particularly those who are busy with their daily work. The new lending policies that the Hangzhou Library has introduced in a continuous manner, are transforming the slogan of “reading changes life”, though still in a pilot effort, gradually into a reality. |