Old books, new tools

The library also seeks to put books directly within students' reach.

In the general reading and reference hall, upgraded in 2023, a wave-shaped bookshelf inspired by the ripples of the university's Weiming Lake holds about 20,000 teaching-reference books.

Around 4,000 general-education books are placed on nearby shelves. A central Boya Book Tower, inspired by the Boya Pagoda on campus, contains about 3,000 duplicate copies from the library's historical holdings and around 1,000 books introducing Peking University's history, people and academic traditions.

Tables display about 3,500 volumes selected from book series and complete sets.

"The idea is that people are among the books, and the books are at hand," says Zhang Naishuai, director of the library's knowledge resources services center.

Instead of requiring students to identify a title, search for it and request it from the stacks, the space puts selected books around them. Series of books with multiple volumes also allow students to move from an individual book into a broader field of knowledge, Zhang says.

Chen Jianlong, director of Peking University Library, has taken a similar approach in the classroom. He recommends around 15 to 16 books to students during a semester and gives them several minutes to talk about what they have read.

Lecturers and visiting speakers are also encouraged to recommend books related to their talks. The library connects those titles with its collections, so students can find and borrow them more easily.

About 70 percent of student borrowing in the past two years has been related to teachers' recommendations or coursework, Chen says.

Paper-book borrowing has reached around 1.2 million instances in recent years, although growth has slowed over the past two years.

Digital resources have expanded at the same time. The library has around 4 petabytes of usable digital resources, including databases and electronic publications.