Turning a new page for village readers

With the growing popularity, Li encountered new but pleasant problems as she could not get enough books to meet demand.

"Besides my books, all those I could get from relatives and friends were put in the library. But since people borrowed books for free, many of them didn't return them. Some damaged books also needed to be removed from circulation. Therefore, the number of books declined significantly," says Li.

As a result, she had to get more. Other than the necessary family expenses, she spent all her money buying books, but they were not enough. Since she could not afford so many new books, she tried every means to get more, like buying from secondhand stores and waste stations in the county and asking people to donate books online.

For a while, she rode a trishaw in the county, with introductions to her library on it, as a way of publicity to rent or get more books. Some people pointed at her and made snide remarks.

"There's the weirdo coming", or words in that vein were often uttered within earshot.

One winter some years ago, she rode the trishaw to a county institute to collect books that had been promised to her. She left home at 5 am and rode for 40 minutes braving the cold because she was happy to get more books. But when she arrived, she was informed by staff that the books had been considered worthless and sold to a waste station.

Walking out of the door of the institute, she was greeted by the rising sun. She faced the sun and cried out of tiredness and frustration.

Besides the difficulties caused by her expenditure, she felt a creeping doubt as to whether what she was doing was worthwhile.

But her readers encouraged her.