Library

There are many similarities in the library system in Canada and in my home country, China.

Such as the financial support.  Firstly, as the governments extend financial support, services at the libraries are free for everyone.  You can just use the citizen card and then deposit money to get a library membership card, and then you can borrow and return for free.

Secondly, in the libraries you can avail of the abundant resources like books, magazines, DVDs etc. For the books, not only fiction books but also non-fiction including academic papers, dictionaries, philosophies, popular sciences, handbooks etc.

Thirdly, various kinds of activities and programs are run by libraries. For example, reading clubs, story time and so on, to name a few.

There are some differences in the library systems between Canada and China.

Due to the large population in China, even though there are 20 libraries in a city like my hometown Shenyang, almost 8 million people share the resources of the 20 libraries. It is also because of the large population the libraries are bigger and have more resources than the libraries in Canada. The biggest library in my hometown has an area of 100,000 square meters. And a part of the library is alike a museum, which has some precious ancient books, even some original editions from the Tang and Song dynasties. But people just have few chances to look at them through the exhibition window during certain periods. Another thing is you can borrow as many items as you want from a library here in Canada but in China it is usually 10 books and 5 DVDs maximum.

With the development of science and technology, Internet and e-books are becoming more and more popular and normal for the younger generation. The libraries also face changes as time goes by.  

From the Internet you can search and get almost everything at your fingertips but for the professional, effective, authoritative and safe information maybe we need E-libraries - all kinds of e-books and materials we can obtain from there.

In the meantime libraries are still needed as the people socialize and we need to communicate and interact with each other, the kids still enjoy the story time, and the older kids also need helps from the librarians with their programs in school.

So, libraries are still a valuable resource, but E-libraries are a good idea as well.