The first library jointly built by Guangzhou and Foshan, READING HOME (“阅读家”广州图书馆南海天河城分馆), opened on October 18. The library uses a shared system to connect libraries in Guangzhou and Foshan allowing residents of the two cites to enjoy free and convenient public library services.

Covering an area of 1,000-square-meters, the library is located near to Financial City Metro Station (金融城站) at the Nanhai T-Mall. It’s the first Foshan branch of Guangzhou Library and a member of the Foshan library union.

The library features a 16.2-meter bookshelf.

According to Guangzhou Library, they have allocated more than 30 thousand books to its Foshan branch, covering such categories as children, literature, economy, leisure and health. They will customize the library’s book collection in the future based on actual reader preferences.

In addition, the library set up an area on the 3rd floor for children and parent-child activities. It’s also equipped with high-tech instruments on the 4th floor, which offer diversified public entertaining services.

The Guangzhou-Foshan library self-serving machines were officially launched at four Foshan libraries (佛山金马剧院自助图书馆、顺德区东平社区自助图书馆、千灯湖智能文化家、南海天河城“阅读家”) on the same day. These machines are able to connect libraries of two cities and provide services including library card registration, book searching and e-book reading.

“’READING HOME’ allows readers to borrow and return books from more than 240 branches of the Guangzhou United Library system and the branches of the Foshan United Library system. For the next step, we will further the construction of the shared Guangzhou-Foshan library online system and provide more convenient services,” said Fang Jiazhong, Director of Guangzhou Library.