Located in Huxi Village, Niushan Street, Donghai County in Lianyungang, Fan's Library was established by Fan’s family originally on an ordinary farmhouse. Having witnessed the efforts of four generations, this library can be traced back to late Qing Dynasty.
Deserted for some time, Fan’s Library was opened again in 1996 by Fan Zhen and his wife and got its current name. There was already a public library in the county, so Fan thought it was necessary to have a good place to read in their village and moved this library back to Huxi Village in 2015. People don’t need to pay or go through troublesome procedures when they read or borrow books. At present, the collection of books is about 70,000, with an average of 30ish people a day and more than 200 at the peak.
Zhang Qiang, president of Huxi Primary School told reporters “our students share books from our school library and Fan’s Library. From Monday to Friday, our teachers and students would go collect books from Fan’s and share them in our classrooms. On Saturday and Sunday, the students will have a reading time in Fan’s together.” Living next door, Fan’s parents volunteer to help those early “birds” have books to read. Because some children get to the library early in the morning and with no breaks at noon.
Having gone through 22 years, Fan won the award The Most Beautiful Volunteer of Jiangsu Province by Publicity Department of Jiangsu Provincial Party Committees and Jiangsu Provincial Civilization Office this February. Fan thinks there’s still much to do for the children to have more reading materials, toys and puzzles.
