About
History
Sanming Library was founded in 1958, first housed in an old Confucian temple at 228 Zhongshan Road, Sanyuan District. It moved to No. 1 Sanyuan Street in 1972, to Building 7, Gaoyan New Village, Meilie District in 1991, and to its current home — Block B, No. 50, Shuangyuan New Village, Sanyuan District — in 2015. The current building has a total floor area of 16,100 m² and 1,108 reading seats.
The library holds over 900,000 items across books, newspapers, magazines, special collections and audiovisual materials, including more than 410,000 print books and periodicals. Its local digital mirror holds 31TB of resources, and readers can also access over 90TB via the Fujian Provincial Library and over 120TB via the National Library of China.
Organisation
The library has a Director's Office and seven functional departments covering administration, operations, and reader services:
Director's Office
Sets overall administrative and operational direction and handles external affairs.
General Office
Oversees how policy and internal regulations are carried out.
Logistics Office
Manages the library's budget, financial oversight, and facilities.
Business Coordination Dept.
Coordinates and supports libraries citywide, plus library-association work.
Technical Services Dept.
Runs automation, networking, and digitisation — and the Digital Resource Service Centre.
Information Resources Dept.
Handles acquisitions, cataloguing, and processing for all collection material.
Programs & Outreach Dept.
Runs the Reading Promotion Service Centre, including the Sanming Weekend Forum.
Circulation Services Dept.
Runs the Print Document Service Centre — lending, reading rooms, and reader guidance.
Signature programs
Sanming Weekend Forum
An ongoing public lecture series — Sanming's own cultural classroom.
"Home · Reading" Service Alliance
A reading-promotion alliance bringing community organisations into public cultural service.
Visually-Impaired Reading Space
Run jointly with the China Library for the Blind's Sanming branch, so readers with disabilities can share in it too.
Branch network
The library's branch network was established in 2015 and now counts 11 member libraries with shared borrowing and returning across all of them, extended further into communities and townships by 69 self-service "Culture Touch-Point" kiosks citywide.
A few branches, up close:
Dongqian Community Library
On the ground floor of the Shidai Jinyuan complex, Meilie District — 200 m², 3,000+ items, shared borrowing with the main library, and a stop on the "Home · Reading" alliance.
Fuxingbao Community Library
Grew out of the reading room at the Fuxingbao sub-district cultural centre — 3,000 items, open to residents year-round.
Gaoqiao Town Library
On the 2nd floor of Gaoqiao village's cultural centre — about 100 m², 2,000+ items, and nearly 1,900 loans a year.