Readers in Hsinchu borrowed the second-largest number of books per person last year, behind only Taipei, the National Central Library said on Monday.
Last year, Hsinchu residents checked out 4.29 books per person on average, the most of any city or county, excluding the six special municipalities, statistics showed.
Taipei readers borrowed 4.78 books on average, the library told a news conference in Taipei.
Photo: Hung Mei-hsiu, Taipei Times
The library also named Hsinchu as one of last year’s most competitive cities when it comes to reading.
The distinction was awarded based on national public library data on the number of books owned and borrowed, and the number of library visits made by an area’s residents, as well as the percentage of residents with a public library card, Hsinchu City Cultural Affairs Bureau Director Huang Ching-hui (黃竫蕙) said.
Hsinchu’s residents love the arts and reading, and have shown a high demand for cultural facilities, Hsinchu Mayor Lin Chih-chien (林智堅) said.
They have high expectations in terms of the quantity and quality of the books that are available to them, he said.
Since assuming office in 2014, he has worked on expanding public spaces for reading in the city, he said.
Ongoing projects include transforming Jiangjun Village (將軍村, “generals’ village”) into an “open library information park,” creating a Hakka-themed library in Guandong Market (關東市場), restoring a Japanese colonial-era library and converting the Taiwan Pavilion for the 2010 Shanghai World Expo into a children’s center, he said.
The construction of a building to house the main branch of the Hsinchu public library system is also expected to be completed by the end of 2022, the bureau said.
The main library, in which the Ministry of Education and the Hsinchu City Government have each invested NT$400 million (US$13 million), will be where the bureau’s library was, it said.
It is to have a total floor area of about 20,000m2 — three times the size of the bureau’s library, it added.
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) today issued a sea warning for Typhoon Fung-wong effective from 5:30pm, while local governments canceled school and work for tomorrow. A land warning is expected to be issued tomorrow morning before it is expected to make landfall on Wednesday, the agency said. Taoyuan, and well as Yilan, Hualien and Penghu counties canceled work and school for tomorrow, as well as mountainous district of Taipei and New Taipei City. For updated information on closures, please visit the Directorate-General of Personnel Administration Web site. As of 5pm today, Fung-wong was about 490km south-southwest of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan's southernmost point.
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