AFP: “China’s Futuristic Library: More Fiction than Books”
A futuristic Chinese library has wowed book lovers around the world with its white, undulating shelves rising from floor to ceiling, but if you read between the lines you’ll find something is missing.
Those rows upon rows of book spines are mostly images printed on the aluminium plates that make up the backs of the shelves.
Pictures of the sleek Tianjin Binhai Library have gone viral on Chinese social media and abroad since its opening last month, with headlines trumpeting it as the “world’s best library” and a “book lover’s dream”.
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“There’s quite a big difference between the photos and reality,” said Jiang Xue, a 21-year-old medical student left perusing one of the more robustly stocked sections: propaganda about the ruling Communist Party’s recent congress.
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About Gary Price
Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area. He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit. Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com.