Chengdu Hosted the 4th Sino-Russian Library Forum
The 4th Sino‑Russian Library Forum was held in Chengdu, People’s Republic of China, from 1−4 June. The forum was organised by the National Library of China, the Russian State Library, and the Sichuan Provincial Library, with the support of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the People’s Republic of China and the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation. The forum is included in the Roadmap of Russia‑China Humanitarian Cooperation Until 2030 and is one of the key events of the Cross Years of Russia‑China Cooperation in Education.
Photo: Russian State Library
The choice of venue for the forum by the heads of the National Library of China and the Russian State Library was no accident. The Sichuan Provincial Library is located in Chengdu, Sichuan Province. Founded in 1912, it is one of China’s first public libraries and a major public cultural institution in the western region of the country. Over its more than century‑long history, the library has become a national first‑class library, a key ancient book conservation institution, the central book depository of Sichuan Province, a Sichuan branch of the National Digital Library of China, and a member of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA). In recent years, the library has received honorary titles such as “National Base for Family Reading”, “National Base for the Promotion and Education of Traditional Chinese Medicine Culture”, and “Centre for the Study of Classical Chinese Heritage”, and has earned the title of “New Cultural Trendsetter of the Chengdu‑Chongqing Region”.
The total floor area of the library building is 52,000 square meters. The architectural design is inspired by traditional Han Dynasty Chinese gates, with two towers connected by a stepped atrium symbolising a “staircase of knowledge”. The library’s total book collection exceeds six million volumes, of which 530,000 are ancient books, including documents from the Republic of China period. As the Sichuan Provincial Ancient Book Conservation Centre, the library houses about half of all rare ancient books in the region, of which 116 have been included in the “National Register of Rare Ancient Books” and 169 in the provincial rare book register. The volume of locally stored digital resources reaches 354 TB. The library receives more than 1.7 million visitors annually, with an average of 10,000 visitors per day on weekends.
Honoured participants of the forum included Zhanna Alekseyeva, State Secretary — Deputy Minister of Culture of the Russian Federation; Wang Jianhua, Deputy Minister of Culture and Tourism of the People’s Republic of China; and Hu Yun, Vice Governor of the People’s Government of Sichuan Province.
Speaking at the opening ceremony, Zhanna Alekseyeva noted that the forum is successfully developing and taking on new forms, demonstrating common approaches and trends in the development of the library sector in both countries. While previously it was held only in Moscow and Beijing, this time it opened in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province.
According to her, the library communities of Russia and China face important tasks.
The Russian Ministry of Culture pays special attention to the promotion of reading at the national level. I want to note the strategic status of libraries in cultural policy. They are the largest network of cultural institutions in Russia — about 42,000 libraries — which serve as the most important source of knowledge, shape the spiritual and moral values of young people, work to counteract the falsification of history, and protect the country’s cultural sovereignty. It is also important that they help expand intercultural dialogue between our peoples. I believe it is essential to continue exchanging our approaches and competencies, further develop international programmes, and implement new promising joint projects.
Keynote reports at the plenary session were delivered by representatives of the organising libraries: Chen Ying, Deputy Director of the National Library of China, President of the Library Society of China, and Secretary of the Party Committee of the National Library of China; and Mikhail Shubin, Deputy Director General of the Russian State Library.
The forum was held in the format of a plenary session and four sessions dedicated to: the role of libraries in promoting books and reading among young people at the national level; practices of preserving cultural heritage in digital format; transformation of service models in the era of artificial intelligence; and cross‑resource exchange between libraries of Russia and China.
Their experiences were shared by heads and leading experts from the Russian State Library, the Russian State Library of Arts, the National Library of Russia, the National Library of the Republic of Karelia, the V. G. Belinsky Sverdlovsk Regional Universal Scientific Library, the Moscow State Institute of Culture, the Shanghai Library, the Peking University Library, the Guangdong Zhongshan Library, the Capital Library of Beijing, the Sichuan Library, the Nanjing Library, the Zhejiang Library, the Gansu Provincial Library, the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region Library, the Guangzhou Library, the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region Library, the Aihui District Library of Heihe City, the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region Library, the Jilin Library, the Liaoning Library, the Manzhouli City Library (Inner Mongolia), and the Hubei Library. Nadezhda Dorgunova, Minister of Culture and National Policy of the Amur Region, spoke about cooperation between the Amur Region of the Russian Federation and Heilongjiang Province of the People’s Republic of China in preserving the memory of the feat of Russian soldiers during Second World War and the liberation of Northeast China from the Japanese invaders.
The Russian State Library was represented at the forum by Mikhail Shubin, Deputy Director General — Director for Digitalisation; Irina Gayshun, Director for International Activities; and Evgeny Lesnikov, Director of the Department of Library Systems and Catalogues of the Russian State Library. They discussed the evolution of the Russian State Library’s digital processes in the context of the national digital transformation strategy and the automation of book movement tracking during circulation or collection organisation.
During the forum, a ceremony was held for the transfer of the first batch of digital copies of manuscripts from the collection of the renowned sinologist Konstantin Skachkov. The photocopying was carried out under an agreement signed in August 2025 in Moscow between the Russian State Library and the National Library of China. Mikhail Shubin handed over 45 electronically photocopied manuscripts to Chen Ying. The full work under the agreement will be completed by the end of 2026, after which high‑quality images will be available to users of the electronic libraries of the Russian State Library and the National Library of China.
The forum was summarised by Zhang Xu, Director of the International Cooperation Division of the National Library of China, and Irina Gayshun, Director for International Activities of the Russian State Library. They noted the high level of organisation of the forum and the expanding geography of participants. Irina Gayshun invited Chinese colleagues to the anniversary 5th anniversary Sino‑Russian Library Forum, which will be held in the summer of 2027 in Blagoveshchensk. The co‑organiser of the forum will be the N.N. Muravyov‑Amursky Amur Regional Scientific Library, which presented a video presentation of the region at the forum.
