Library Can Bring Much in Developing Cultural and Creative Products
| The efforts that libraries, museums and art galleries in China are now making in branding their cultural and creative products to bring new life to their featured holdings are expected to help speed up the maturing process of the country’s cultural and creative industries. Recently the Ministry of Culture and the State Administration of Culture Heritage approved and registered applications submitted by 154 cultural institutions for a pilot program of cultural and creative product development. Of the 154 registered experimental bases nationwide, 37 are libraries above the subsidiary provincial level. Packages of measures have been taken by the libraries, represented by the National Library of China and Shanghai Library, to match the initiatives devised to support and promote creativity attempts and business startups. One of the examples is the “maker spaces” set up in many public libraries, which primarily target the young people by providing various conveniences for their innovation, startup and creativity practices and projects. Specifically, libraries are encouraged to make use of their collection resources for the development of a wide range of cultural and creative products, by such means as working with partners, licensing, obtaining shares by property rights investment and self-development, based on the cultural traditions and heritages and in a way that the public will happy to see, to eventually promote reading among the public. Currently some regions are known to be taking actions driven by the state policies and the exemplary practices pioneered by a number of cultural institutions. |