During June 15-23, 2011, the Chief Librarian of Hangzhou Public Library Chu Shuqing accepted the invitation by the organizer of the International Library Forum of NEXT LIBRARY 2011, and went to Aarhus of Denmark to participate in the forum, accompanied by Wu Yizhou, the director of the Theme Literature Center. Over 300 representatives from 36 countries participated in the forum.
The Chief Librarian Chu Shuqing participated in the forum with invitation as a keynote speaker and made the keynote speech of “Public Library: ‘The Third Cultural Space’ of the People”. The speech mainly explained the idea of Hangzhou Public Library for being a “library for ordinary people and a large study for citizens”, as well as the citizens’ participation in library work, the support to the library construction in underdeveloped regions, and the popularization of computerization in rural area and other work. Finally, he expressed his unique perspective in how urban public libraries to become “The Third Cultural Space” of Cities in future development.
The modest and refined image of an oriental scholar, the beautiful Hangzhou, as well as the service ideas and contents of Hangzhou Public Library that reflect advancements and humanistic care in every detail were demonstrated with the carefully prepared PPT, which completely attracted attentions of the all attending representatives. Applauses occurred for many times, and the speech was a huge success. It not only objectively reflected the urban beauty of Hangzhou, the openness of the public library ideas in China, the comprehensiveness of librarian services, but also received more understandings, respects and congratulations from the international librarianship field, which would significantly promote Hangzhou Public Library to enter the international field and deepen the cooperation. Especially, it enabled us to more comprehensively understand the exploration of the world’s library field in the development of libraries in the future as well as their progress in the aspects of digital libraries and library performance evaluation.
