In almost four years of implementing the government’s "Fostering a reading culture in the community until 2020, with an orientation to 2030" project, Hanoi has held a wide range of activities for spreading and developing the reading culture in the city. 

Hanoi promotes reading culture in community. Photo: Lai Tan (Kinh te & Do thi)

Over the years, the city has been actively expanding the library network in districts and wards; adding more books to libraries at communities or association branches of the visually impaired people; sending library vans to educational institutions in the suburbs to improve people’s access to books.

Especially, the Hanoi Book Day has become an annual cultural activity, attracting a lot of appreciation and interest from the community and gaining positive outcomes. It not only honors the reading culture, contributes to the creation of a ‘learning society’, but also serves as an opportunity for Hanoians to improve their understanding of the rich culture of the millenary capital.

The city has enriched the content and diversified the forms of publications, the databases of all the city’s libraries are updated on a regular basis. Under the project of producing audio books for the visually impaired, seventy-six book titles (19,347 pages) and 304 audio CDs, 79 catalogs of books, including children's books have been released. A full-text database of 1,841 book titles (164,760 pages) has been built.

The city also expands international cooperation in publishing. From 2016 up to now, Hanoi has been a regular participant at the Frankfurt International Book Fair (Germany) with the Hanoi-Vietnam book booth. In addition, the Hanoi Book Fair has been increasingly expanded with the growing participation of publishers.

In terms of direction and key tasks in the next stage, Hanoi will continue disseminating about the meaning and importance of fostering a reading culture. Besides maintaining the traditional libraries, the city will build up digital libraries for modern readers.