The 2015 evaluation results of the national public libraries have come out! Anding District Library has made brilliant achievements by winning three awards for Library of the Year, Innovative Service, and Blue Chip Library, and received trophies and medals from Minister of Education Wu Sihua on December 5 at the National Library in Taipei City. The press conference takes place today (December 8) at Anding District Library.
The biannual national public libraries evaluation is a great event for all the libraries. The awards are in three categories: Libraries of the Year, Libraries with Specialties, and Blue Chip Libraries. Being awarded as a Library of the Year is the top honor because there are only ten libraries to be awarded. After the accreditation committee members’ preliminary evaluation and re-evaluation, Anding District Library, in addition to performing well in every evaluation category, won high recognition from the committee members due to caring and innovative services, and thus secured the awards of Library of the Year, Library with Specialties of Innovative Service, and Blue Chip Library. It is the only and the first library in Tainan City to win three awards at the same time. At the press conference today, besides conferring certificates of gratitude to the 7-11, Family Mart, and Hi-Life convenience stores, which offered the service of borrowing and returning books, the library also awarded bonuses to the library staff.
Anding District is a typical countryside administration district. Compared with cities, it has fewer resources. The library turns inferiority into superiority by promoting lots of innovative services. “Joyful Reading Book Box” sends books to classrooms so that elementary school children in this district can have the chance to read at least 200 extracurricular books. The original “Convenience Store Borrowing and Returning Service” increases the convenience and safety of returning books at nighttime. Up until November 2015, 19,439 volumes have been returned. Almost 500 people have used this service. In addition, the windowside reading area loved by readers has become the most popular place in the library. The library also purchased carts so that readers who want to borrow a large number of books won’t need to carry books on their own and feel tired. All these convenient services surprised the evaluation committee members.
District head Zhu Dong says that winning awards means positive recognition as well as more responsibility. It is not easy to win awards in the public library evaluation and stand out from the 532 public libraries in the country. This achievement comes from the library staff’s hard work and the local readers’ support and care. In the future, Anding District Library will stick to the original intention of “There is no best, but there is better,” and continue to work hard to create a finer reading environment for Anding.
Contact information: Wang Xue-ling, Civil Affairs, Community and Cultural Section, Anding District Office
Tel：5921116 ext. 171