Yunnan Provincial Library (YPL), a provincial public library, is situated at No. 141, the Green Lake South Road in Kunming city. It ranks among the top class national public libraries and is listed in the first group of the national key institutions that focus on the ancient book preservation.

History

Yunnan Provincial Library was first established in Kunming city in the first year of Emperor Xuantong’s reign of Qing Dynasty(1909) under the name of Yunnan Library, which was located by the Green Lake Park at the former site of the Jingzheng Academy . In the third Xuantong Year of Qing Dynasty(1911), a museum was opened in the library, and the library got its new name Yunnan Library and Museum. In the 18th year of the Republic of China(1929), the library was renamed Yunnan Provincial Library of Chinese Studies. In the 20th year of the Republic of China(1931), the library renamed Yunnan Provincial Kunhua Library once more. In March 1950, the People’s Government of Yunnan Province requested to move all the books that belong to Yunnan Education Academy and other institutions into the library, which was renamed Yunnan People’s library. Starting from October 1953, Yunnan People’s library was renamed Yunnan Provincial Library for the last time. In 1975, the library buildings with nearly 9000 m2 area were built at No. 2 south Green Lake Road of Kunming city. To meet the needs of economic and social development of Yunnan Province, the local People’s Government approved in 1991 to rebuild Yunnan Provincial Library at its original site. In 2004, the new building of Yunnan Provincial Library was fully opened to public, and in 2008, the library added the new brand named the Ancient Books Preservation Center of Yunnan Province.

Collections

By the end of 2016, Yunnan Provincial Library had embraced comprehensive collections of 3,762,700 books, among which 595,600 ancient documents and 80,000 local minority documents were the most distinctive, and 130 ancient documents were listed in The National Directory of Precious Ancient Books. Besides, the digital resources have topped 89 TB, including 21 databases and 438,500 digital books.

Functions and Services

Yunnan Provincial Library, covering a floor area of 32,600 m2, consists of 18 reading rooms, 1 auditorium, 1 multi-function hall etc. More than 3,500 readers can be served at one time. Starting from 2011, the YPL has offered all the basic services and public facilities in the library completely open to the society for free. By the end of 2016, the YPL had set up 14 branch libraries and 34 books circulation depots all over the Yunnan Province.

For many years, Yunnan Provincial Library has been organizing many kinds of colorful reading-promotion activities to the general public. Meanwhile, the YPL has been conferred several honorary titles including: the Incorruptibility Culture  Education Base for the National Culture Institutes, the Yunnan Branch-Library of China Braille Library, the Nationwide Reading Demonstration Base, the Popularity Education Base of Philosophy and Social Science in Yunnan Province, the Incorruptibility Culture Construction Education Base for the Yunnan Provincial Government Organs, the Experimental Base of the Education and Research on the Ideology and Morality for Children, the Yunnan Provincial Government Organs Reading Base for Youth. In November 2015, the YPL opened “Pu’er Tea Culture Library”. As a distinctive library in the YPL, it has fully exploited the local characteristic cultural resources, making great contributions to spread and inherit the local culture. In addition, in February 2017, the YPL set up the first branch library of the discipline inspection commission in Pu’er city, which is a model of the digital reading.

As a sub- center of National Culture Information Resources Sharing Project, Yunnan Provincial Library has finished the construction tasks of 16 city sub-centers, 129 county branch-centers and 1375 towns’ services stations, creating a new construction model called “Network Training School for Farmers’ Education”, through which gains the “Yunnan experience” for the constructions of the digital cultural resources and the Chinese cultural network television program. What’s more, the YPL has finished the local distinctive resources constructions, such as the constructions of 15 unique ethnic minorities’ culture resources with their own features.

As a sub-library of the national digital library, the YPL is devoted to developing the Digital Library Promotion Program. With the successful progress of the program construction, public libraries including the national library, provincial library and 16 city libraries have been linked together to form a virtual network. Besides, the Digital Resources Area has been set up in the library, and the wechat, weibo and the mobile phone services are all available for readers , which can realize the remote access to the digital resources in the library’s collections.

As the sub-center of the National Ancient Books Preservation Center, the YPL makes great effort to protect the ancient books, which was awarded as “the Advanced Unit of National Ancient Books Preservation”, “the National Ancient Books Conservation Center” and “the Yunnan Studying and Imparting Institution of the National Ancient Books Conservation Skill Center”. In 2016, the YPL’s cultural voluntary service program on protecting the ethnic minority’s ancient books was awarded as one of the best voluntary service programs, carried out jointly by CCP Central Publicity Department and Central Civility Office etc. with the purpose of learning from Lei Feng ( the representative figure in China who helped people selflessly ). What’s more, the general investigation and registration program of the ancient books was conferred the typical case of the national cultural voluntary service activities by the Ministry of Culture.

Organization

The LYP is composed of 14 departments, which are: the Director’s Office, the D Human Resources & CPC Work Department, the Finance Department, the Security Department, the Reference and Consulting Department, the Historical Documents Department, the Local Documents Department, the Classic Collections Department, the Acquisition & Cataloguing Center , the Computer Network Department, the Culture Information Resources Sharing Project Office, the Exhibition Center, the Logistics Department, and the Training & Education Department.