The awareness and local application of multicultural services in Chinese public libraries: The service model of the Guangzhou Library

This Guangzhou is one of southern China’s largest cities and has a long tradition of being the city through which the world gained access to China. As a result of the city’s status as a quickly growing international metropolis with a wide variety of economic opportunities, it boasts a culturally, ethnically, and linguistically diverse population. To best serve Guangzhou’s diverse population, the Guangzhou library has become a unique multicultural community space for the city. After the new facility was opened in December of 2012, and the 2011-2015 Development Plan was implemented, a number of new service areas, services, and multicultural programs were opened to better serve the Guangzhou Library’s diverse population of readers. The new service areas include the Multiculture Library, the Language Learning Library, and the Library of the People and Culture of Guangzhou. Within the aforementioned service areas, the library offers multilingual collections, programs developed for both Chinese readers, international readers, and a combination of both groups. The new service areas also serve as the home to the library’s international communication and exchange programs. Within the context of multicultural library practices in China, the following paper discusses the development and implementation of the new programs and activities and the library’s achievements thus far.