China News Service, Ningbo, September 25 (Zhang Bin, Liu Zilin) The "Day and Night Reading" column launched by the Ningbo Library in Zhejiang is about to usher in its own "One Thousand and One Nights".
This column will start on New Year's Day 2024. From that time on, short videos with the content of "a reader selects a book and reads excerpts from it" appeared on the short video accounts of "Ningbo Culture and Tourism" and "Ningbo Library" on time every night. By September 27 this year, the 1001st issue of this column will be broadcast.
According to Xu Yibo, director of Ningbo Library, the practice of this column has benefited from the spread of short videos and is also "fighting" against the fragmented reading habits that accompany it.
"We hope that people who see the video will be moved by a book within two or three minutes, and then choose to read in depth." Xu Yibo said that he chose to publish the video in the evening because this time period is basically a person's "time to calm down and belong to himself" after eating dinner and doing housework.
Who will read aloud and which books to read are questions that the staff of the "Day and Night Reading" column often think about, and they are also the characteristics of this column.
Qu Biwu Niu, a student of Beilun Vocational High School in Ningbo City, read "The Catcher in the Rye"; Ren Chaohui, a rural professional manager in Yunlong Village, Yinzhou District, Ningbo City, read "Country China" by the lotus pond; Pan Hao, a football player from Fenghua District, Ningbo City, sat on the court and read "The Autobiography of Mourinho"; Zhao Yi, a student of Donghu Primary School in Yinzhou District Sun Mengyang and Sun Mengyang were selected for the "I want to read at night" activity in the "Day and Night Reading" column, and they read "The Mountain of the Storm" together; Zhao Wenxuan, a Taiwanese artist who lives in seclusion in the countryside of Ningbo, once read Mo Yan's works in the column; an old middle school principal who has retired for many years appeared as a reader. After the video was released, many students found him through the column...
From readers to book selection, this format of reading and recommending books from the public to the public is the unique style of the column. There are no identity restrictions, and the readers can be famous literary figures, or front-line truck drivers and sanitation workers.
"After so many issues, we believe that the 'Readings for Days and Nights' column has basically achieved its original goal, especially highlighting the 'publicity' of public libraries." Xu Yibo said frankly that from the perspective of traffic, readings by famous people have received more outstanding responses, but the column has always adhered to the "public" attribute, and instead formed a positive cycle of "famous people attracting attention and public participation."
What is interesting is that during the night reading process, Ningbo’s urban humanistic temperament of “collecting ancient and modern books” was inspired and presented.
As of the time of publication on September 25, the "Readings of Days and Nights" column had been circulated more than 36 million times across the entire network. In the night reading content of the column, literary books account for more than half. The overall structure of the bibliography is centered on humanistic readings, which meets the public's needs for in-depth reading and reflects the positioning of the project to deeply cultivate humanistic reading promotion.
In terms of borrowing data, "reading every day and night" has driven the Ningbo Library's book borrowing volume to increase significantly.
For example, after the TV series "My Altay" was broadcast, the "Day and Night Reading" column combined hot topics to release a reading video of "My Altay", which set a borrowing record for the book in Ningbo Library that month. In addition, once recommended, the number of borrowed books such as "Falling in Love with Ningbo", "Mountain Living Years" and "Ba Jin: Reading and Life" has increased to more than 20 times the previous level.
In recent years, the "Reading Day and Night" column has also been included in the work report of the Ningbo Municipal Government and selected as a high-quality development case of public services in Zhejiang Province. Xu Yibo said that the museum is most concerned about "who will read aloud" and hopes that all walks of life can participate more widely. Through the "Reading Day and Night" column, more people can "put down their mobile phones and pick up a book."
