Page 77 - Journal of Library Science in China 2020 Vol.46

076 Journal of Library Science in China, Vol.12, 2020

unmarketable books that others don’t want to read, and no one wants to read them here either.”
In addition to the static stimulus, reading activity as a dynamic stimulus also influences public
participation. In 2018, 35 of the 77 farmers’ reading rooms surveyed hosted reading activities, with
an average of 3.25 events per room. In view of villagers’ participation, only 219 people participated
in public reading activities, accounting for 39.4% of the total number of people who visited the
farmers’ reading room, and 10.84% of the total survey sample, indicating that the participation
rate was not high. The reason is that the activities were small in quantity, unattractive in content
and weak in practicability. A librarian of the farmers’ reading room said, “Because the village
committee lacks funds, we can only invite college students to give lectures in the winter vacation.
There is no air conditioning in the reading room, so we can only hold one or two activities in the
winter vacation.” A 67-year-old resident said, “The farmers’ reading room in our village has held
several moral lectures. People with free time were persuaded to attend the lectures. In fact, they
were quite boring and none of us wanted to go.” Another 34-year-old villager also said, “The
children’s psychological classes were held by the residents’ committee in the farmers’ reading
room. In the beginning, I went to the classes with my children. But the classes were all taught by
members of the residents’ committee . I didn’t feel much useful, so I didn’t go later.”

3.2.2 Stimulating means of public reading
The existence of stimulus does not mean that effective stimulation is achieved. If public reading
resources and venues only exist as “stimulus” without effective “stimulating”, it is difficult to attract
people’s attention, let alone promoting residents’ cognition, understanding and reading. Reviewing
the communication effect of rural public reading places, it was found that their communication
validity was relatively limited, and only 41.8% of rural residents knew the existence of farmers’
reading room. It was mainly because the means and methods of communication were not effective,
and the frequency and intensity of communication were not enough.
In terms of communication and stimulating means, the government and the farmers’ reading
rooms as the suppliers mainly adopted two methods: mass communication and organizational
communication. In practice, mass media such as mobile Internet were used less, while
organizational communication was used more. According to the survey results, only 4.2%,
2.7% and 1.2% people knew about the farmers’ reading room through computer networks,
microblog and WeChat, and news media such as radio, television, newspapers. One reason for
the situation is that the mass media did not carry out effective publicity. On the other hand,
there is the information (knowledge) gap in mass communication in rural areas. “Differences
in mass media, communication skills, knowledge and information reserves, social interactions,
acceptance, understanding and memory” (Tichenor, Donohue, & Olien, 1970) make the speed
and effect of mass communication in rural areas much more inferior than that in urban areas.
Traditional ways of organizational communication were still adopted in villages: 32.5% used
meetings, 27.3% used bulletin boards, and 19.5% used loudspeakers. At the same time, the