Close to 400 new books have been added to the Richmond Public Library (RPL) Chinese Collection to meet the high demand from the local Chinese-speaking community.
Wendy Jang, coordinator of Collections and Customer Service Delivery at RPL, said Richmond is a highly literate community because residents are always on top of finding out the latest books.
“Once new books get here, our customers will find out very quickly what the news books are and put a hold on it,” said Jang, adding that they have been working closely with two vendors - one provides books in simplified Chinese and the other provides books in traditional Chinese.
Before coming up with a detailed book list regarding what kind of books to purchase within a specific budget, Jang and her team members will ask themselves a few questions, such as which authors are famous in Asia, what the clientele looks like and what issues they do care about.
The new books, added Jang, range from science fiction to martial arts novels.
The ongoing pandemic has stopped some readers from visiting the library as often as they used to, but Jang hopes to see more familiar faces and new readers.
“No matter if you want to come here for studying, reading newspapers and books, or just using the public computers, we welcome you to come back and our staff looks forward to helping you anytime,” said Jang.
