【Kaohsiung】For many years, the branch libraries of Kaohsiung Public Library (KPL) have each cultivated unique characteristics, continuously developing innovations for readers. This year (2024), KPL’s Heti and Linyuan Branch Libraries received the Reading Advocators’ Team Award, one of the categories in the Ministry of Education’s (MOE) Reading Boulder Awards, due to the remarkable characteristics of their library collection.

Having received the award for its excellent collection of picture books, the Heti Branch Library has successfully integrated its internal and external resources. Meanwhile, the Linyuan Branch Library has established comprehensive learning resources and pulled in locals to participate in their reading promotional activities by optimizing the library’s reading environment and getting to know the local culture.

KPL has built cooperative relations with businesses, organizations, and communities to promote reading further. Thanks to their efforts in creating a reading-friendly environment for citizens of all ages, KPL has also received the Lifelong Learning Boulder Award.

According to Director Wang Wen-Tsui of the Kaohsiung City Government’s Bureau of Cultural Affairs, Kaohsiung’s 60 branch libraries have all dedicated themselves to establishing a reading culture and shared local resources. Whether in the city or the countryside, these branch libraries have all contributed to putting the concept of cultural equality into practice, developing and interlinking local cultures and library collections—building environments suited for lifelong learning in the libraries. By increasing the quality of service provided, the branch libraries continue to further their agenda of creating reading-friendly environments.

By connecting business resources and dedicating funds to installing reading and educational hardware and software, the Kaohsiung City Government has played a proactive role in enriching library collections, increasing the number of books citizens own, and promoting cultural events. Community public libraries tend to adopt diverse business models. In addition to professional knowledge of libraries and information and passionate service, these libraries ensure that every corner of its facilities is filled with local cultural characteristics, all designed after considering the lines of cultural development and citizens’ reading requirements. When citizens walk through the doors of a library, they can immerse themselves and learn more about the cultures of their hometown.

KPL’s Acting Director Lin Yi-Cheng (林奕成), remarked that reading is the essence of cultural education. With the city and countryside characteristics at the forefront, KPL has always been dedicated to building cross-domain partnerships, reflecting the spirit of SDG11, which is focused on “Sustainable Cities and Communities” in its efforts to promote reading education in Kaohsiung. This includes integrating real-life situations from awareness, knowledge, and reflection into action as part of its activities, allowing locals to construct stories of the land built on their hometown identities. Similarly, KPL encourages students to interact with the world through creativity and establish diversified cooperation with society through libraries. By doing so, children can build connections with their communities to realize a future vision of creating communities that thrive on reading.

KPL says the Heti Branch Library combines human-centered traffic and road safety education with school-based reading promotional efforts. The Heti Branch Library also joined hands with Heti Primary School to produce picture books with themes centralized on traffic safety, which are rare in Taiwan. Under the guidance of Cookie Lin and Liao Chien-Hung, picture book authors from Kaohsiung, the Heti Branch Library launched a course of 16 classes with the theme of “Road Traffic Safety” at its core.

From storyboarding and character design to storyline development, the course addressed each step in the picture book creation process. During the course, schoolchildren could experience cross-disciplinary learning by combining their beliefs on human-centered traffic and road safety with language, art, and social and life lessons. Their efforts created a picture book titled The Little Expert of Kaohsiung City Traffic. During the process, they were able to build on their knowledge of road traffic safety. Not only that, the schoolchildren also learned how to channel their passive reading into active creation, allowing them to conduct cross-disciplinary activities that cultivate their love for reading.

The Linyuan Branch Library is located in the southernmost part of Kaohsiung, an area known as the home of Taiwan’s biggest petrochemical complex. Therefore, the Linyuan Branch has always aimed to promote reading among citizens through effective integration and utilization of local resources. The branch library courageously sought resources from the MOE to establish the Linyuan Digital Opportunity Center (DOC). The center provides citizens with ICT in hopes of reducing the digital disparity between residents of the city and the rural areas. The center also aims to cultivate human resources in the community to promote the library actively, encouraging citizens to use its educational and digital resources and further establishing cultural equality. DOC also provides students with ICT and resources for stop-motion animation, allowing them to learn and cultivate skills in producing animation. These accomplishments clearly show the library’s efforts to equalize the learning resources between city residents and rural areas.

Winning the MOE’s Reading Advocators’ Team Award proves that the Heti and Linyuan Branch Libraries have successfully planted the fruits of KPL’s efforts to promote reading in local communities. KPL promotes reading education in communities by emphasizing the local unique characteristics, encouraging citizens to build friendships, caring for local ecologies, preserving local histories and cultures, and continuously developing sustainable cities and communities. KPL uses reading-based activities to encourage citizens to care and act on behalf of their hometowns and cultivate their critical thinking skills. Eventually, these efforts were recognized with the highest reading award in Taiwan. In the future, KPL will continue reaching out to local communities, providing more diverse and creative reading services, and promoting reading amongst local culture to foster the cultivation of knowledge amongst citizens.