Center hall

Entrance hall with sculpture

Ancient Chinese Books, reading room.

Four major features in the design:

• Free access
• Multi-functional
• Scalability and flexibility, and
• Artistic design

The Shanghai Library can store 13.2 million books.
It is a research and public library with

• 20 large reading rooms with 3000 seats,
• a 800-seat auditorium,
• a 300-seat multifunctional hall,
• two exhibition halls
• four 100-seat seminar rooms for academic activity,
• audio-video rooms and
• music appreciation rooms.

Shanghai Library also contains

• Institute of Scientific & Technical Information of Shanghai, integrated in Shanghai Library from October 1995,
• Library Science and Informatics Research Institute,
• Historical Document Research Institute,
• China Cultural Celebrities’ Manuscript library and
• Arts Research Institute

With the National Library in Beijing, Shanghai Library is one of the most upfront libraries in china around the year 2000. A group of large-scale public libraries are presently under construction or in the planning: In Beijing, in Shandong and Anhui provinces and in Shenqang, Nanjing and Shenzhen cities. The rapid growth of the library sector in China now tells that more than 2.600 public libraries are functioning on county-level or higher, and presently a new library is being opened in China every four day (China Daily, August 13th 1999)

http://www.libnet.sh.cn