Measures for the Administration of Public Libraries in Henan Province

Article 1 In order to strengthen the construction and management of public libraries, meet the people's demand for scientific and cultural knowledge, and promote the construction of socialist material civilization and spiritual civilization, these Measures are formulated in accordance with the relevant provisions of the state and the actual situation of our province. Article 2 The term "public library" as mentioned in these Measures refers to public welfare cultural facilities established by the government and open to the public, which undertake the functions of collecting, sorting, keeping and utilizing literature resources, including children's libraries. Article 3 The departments for cultural administration at or above the county level are the competent departments of public libraries within their respective administrative areas.

The relevant departments of the people's governments at or above the county level shall, in accordance with their respective responsibilities, do a good job in the construction and management of public libraries. Article 4 Public libraries shall implement the curator responsibility system. According to the relevant regulations, the curator should have the corresponding title, and the staff should have the post qualifications. Article 5 The layout, quantity and scale of public libraries should be optimized according to the needs of national economic and social development, local population distribution and library development. People's governments at all levels shall incorporate the construction and development of public libraries into social and economic development planning and overall urban planning.

The construction area and reading seats of public libraries shall be implemented in accordance with relevant state regulations. Sixth public library construction land, approved by the people's governments at or above the county level, allocated by the land management department. Article 7 The design of newly-built public libraries must ensure the scientific and practical functions of public libraries and facilitate public use. Article 8 The premises, equipment and literature resources of public libraries are protected by law, and no unit or individual may damage or occupy them.

No unit or individual may change the use of public library premises without authorization. Article 9 The funds of public libraries shall be arranged by governments at all levels from cultural undertakings, and shall be appropriately increased according to the development of public libraries and local financial resources.

The literature purchase fees of public libraries shall be listed separately and shall not be misappropriated.

Encourage domestic and foreign units and individuals to donate funds, documents and equipment to public libraries. Article 10 Public libraries should strengthen automation, networking and digitalization, improve information processing, storage and transmission capabilities, and improve the work efficiency and service quality of public libraries. Eleventh public libraries should properly keep documents and materials in accordance with the relevant provisions of the state, and strengthen the management of fire safety. Article 12 The weekly opening hours of public libraries shall meet the following standards: no less than 80 hours for provincial libraries, no less than 63 hours for municipal libraries, no less than 56 hours for county libraries and no less than 40 hours for children's libraries.

Public libraries should be open as usual during national holidays and winter and summer vacations. Thirteenth public libraries should adopt the open-shelf or semi-open-shelf lending system, and pay attention to designing, creating and maintaining a good reading environment for readers.

Readers should issue valid certificates when borrowing documents, go through the borrowing procedures and return them within the prescribed time limit. Fourteenth public libraries can determine the scope and methods of borrowing documents and materials according to different service objects. Except as stipulated by the state, no other standard documents and materials shall be sealed.

The documents and materials in children's libraries should conform to children's characteristics, and the borrowing scope should not contain contents that are not conducive to children's physical and mental health. Fifteenth public libraries should take various forms such as book fairs, lectures and mass reading activities to recommend excellent reading materials to readers and guide them to read. Sixteenth public library staff should provide readers with information about books and periodicals, answer readers' inquiries about reading, and guide readers to find books and periodicals.

Public libraries should do a good job in collecting special information, compiling reference materials and retrieving and translating books and periodicals for readers according to their needs. Seventeenth public libraries to borrow books, newspapers and periodicals free of charge, giving priority to minors, the elderly and the disabled.

Public libraries can register readers, collect thematic information, compile reference materials, provide lending services for audio-visual products and electronic publications, or search, translate and copy documents and materials on their behalf, and can charge appropriate fees. The specific charging standards shall be formulated separately by the provincial cultural administrative department in conjunction with the provincial finance and price departments. Article 18 The basic collection of public libraries is not less than 2.5 million copies in provincial libraries, 400,000 copies in municipal libraries and 80,000 copies in county libraries. Nineteenth provincial libraries focus on the collection of patent documents, standard documents, local documents and major newspapers, series, multi-volume books and major foreign publications published by domestic publishing houses, newspapers, magazines and other publishing units.

City and county libraries mainly collect local documents of cities and counties and major publications of publishing houses, newspapers, magazines and other publishing units in this province. Twentieth public libraries should gradually form the collection characteristics. In addition to the collection of traditional carrier documents, we should also collect new carrier documents such as audio-visual products, microfilms (volumes), science and technology films and CDs. Twenty-first public libraries are the collection units of publication versions within their administrative areas. Publishing units and publishing houses, newspapers, magazines and other relevant units within the administrative area shall, within 30 days from the date of publication, send two samples of publications to the local public library for collection. Twenty-second public libraries should process the newly collected documents and materials in time and put them into lending. The disposal of documents and materials that have lost their use value shall be reported to the administrative department for culture for approval.