Tongzhou District Library，a comprehensive medium-sized library invested by the government，is a municipal level public library named by Ministry of Culture of the People’s Republic of China. Its predecessor dates back to the establishment of Tongxian Popular Library of Jingzhao in 1916 and Hebei Tongxian Popular Library established in 1929 as a county library.
In October 2013, Tongzhou District Library moved to the east coast of the starting point of the Grand Canal. It is open all year round. As a place that can provide lifelong education and knowledge for citizens of Tongzhou District and an important symbol of the city’s cultural connotation and taste, Tongzhou District Library sets up a high starting point and a high target in its service function. It provides various cultural services for the public, such as the literature-borrowing service, lectures and forums, exhibition exchange, information consultation, adolescent activities, entertainment, etc. With comprehensive cultural facilities and high technology, Tongzhou District Library has rich resources of collections and highlights theme reading. With strict organizational construction, it adheres to the grass-roots unit. With distinctive regional characteristics, it possesses precious ancient collections. With comprehensive collections of children’s scientific knowledge, its out-of-school education is solid. With the extension of nationwide reading, the atmosphere of reading becomes strong .
As important intellectual information hub and spiritual civilization construction base, Tongzhou District Library is a vital part of Tongzhou District public cultural system. It is also an important node of Beijing public library network construction. It is appraised as the member library of Capital Library Alliance, the featured branch of Capital Library of China, the sub-center of the National Cultural Information Resources Sharing Project, Beijing Science Popularization Base, Tongzhou sub-center of Beijing Children’s Science Popularization and Reading Center, the civilized integrity demonstration window in Tongzhou District, the social classroom demonstration base among Tongzhou District primary and secondary schools. In recent years, Tongzhou District Library achieves a great many honors like the most beautiful reading space in Beijing reading festival, the outstanding unit of Beijing Municipal Committee of ideological and political work, the outstanding organization award of Beijing red scarf reading activities, the outstanding organization award of volunteer service in Tongzhou District, etc.
Tongzhou District Library follows the concept of “open and large service”, forming an integrated open layout of collecting, borrowing, reading and consulting. Through innovative service means to guide the participation of social forces, Tongzhou District Library widely holds pluralistic and comprehensive reader’s activities. It strives to create a personalized brand service to create a new image of the library service, turning into the bright window of Beijing subsidiary administrative center’s spiritual civilization and cultural development.