• 2014-06-01

The Southern Region Resource Center for Public Libraries was officially opened on May 22, 2014 in the Zuoxin Branch of the Kaohsiung Public Library. The Ministry of Education’s Deputy Director of Department of Lifelong Education Li Yu-chuan and Director-general Tseng Shu-hsien of National Central Library attended the opening, as did the oversight committee for the Public Library Resource Consolidation Development Project and representatives from libraries from across the southern region. The resource center’s holdings can be divided up into four main categories: youth, multicultural, culture and creativity, and educational. Of these, education books number the most. Currently it holds over 28,000 volumes, including Chinese, foreign language, and East Asian books (395 in Thai, 464 in Vietnamese, 257 in Burmese, 315 in Indonesian, and 87 in Malay). In terms of material types, there are general books, children’s books, and audio/visual materials. As of January 2014, the public can borrow books from the center—with a total of 30,000 volumes having been borrowed to date.

The Northern Region Resource Center was officially opened on May 30, 2014 at the Taipei Public Library. Due to the fact that Taipei has been designated the World Design Capital for 2016, the Northern Region Resource Center was built around the concept of “culture and creativity.” It has acquired quality Chinese, foreign language, and East Asian books and audio/visual materials for public consumption, as recommended by experts in related disciplines.