Trade Union Libraries in the People's Republic of China

Abstract

China has a major system of libraries funded and administered by trade unions. Libraries that are part of this system are found in factories and other enterprises across China. They are staffed by union members and are for the use of factory and enterprise employees who are union members, and their families. Trade union libraries were but a handful in number when the People's Republic of China was founded in 1949. They increased in number to close to 250,000 in the late 1980s and declined to approximately 98,400 by 1997. Trade union libraries have served a number of functions: as purveyors of political and moral ideology, suppliers of recreational reading, supporters of education, and, recently, as contributors to China's economic development. With the economic and social changes that have characterized China over the past twenty years, the trade union library system has fallen on hard times.