April 23 marks the World Book and Copyright Day. In order to understand the situation of the Chinese people's consumption of books, magazines and audiovisual products, the China Institute of Publishing Science launched the Fourth National Reading Survey at the end of last year, and the results were released in April.

The survey shows that the portion of people who regularly read paper books to China's total population had declined for six years in a row until 2005 to below 50 percent for the first time. The online reader base had expanded, with the portion rising from 3.7 percent in 1999 to 18.3 percent in 2003 and 27.8 percent in 2005, 7.5 times higher in seven years with a year-on-year increase of 107 percent.

The results have made many scholars even more concerned about the dimming outlook for reading books. Some think it reveals people's indifference to books, which are said to be the "carriers of human civilization." Some even go to the extreme of claiming that it is no less than a cultural castration, giving up the inheritance of traditional culture as well as rejecting input from the world's advanced cultures.

However, others argue that it is just a transformation of reading habits, with less consumption of paper books and more reliance on online materials, which they think is an inevitable trend in the Internet age. To keep up with the times, they say, the publishing business should undertake reforms to enrich the content of ebooks because people get the same satisfaction from online reading as from traditional paper books.

No big deal

Zhang Ruoyu (freelance writer): I don't think it's really a humanistic disaster as the readers of paper books decrease. As everyone knows, this is a time of multimedia products amid an information explosion. Multimedia offers people more channels for reading and the fast expansion of information makes traditional print publications less efficient. Thus, people are extending their reading to a wider range of materials instead of being confined to paper books. In other words, reading has evolved from the era of reading books to that of multi-reading. In this regard, we can say that the decrease in the paper book readership is inevitable and all the worries about a degeneration of the national quality or a humanistic disaster are groundless.

Furthermore, I'd like to translate the phenomenon into a symbol of social progress. Reading books has been too much of a responsibility in the past: We needed to read books for information, entertainment, career development and making money. In such a practical atmosphere, no wonder the number of book readers was high in the past. We have to ask ourselves: Do we actually read for the ultimate reason--to upgrade our own civilization and humanity?

With the coming of the multi-reading era, the act of reading is peeling off its overly political, economical and cultural values and returning to its original connotation. The apparent decline in the overall reading population actually breeds the revival of the origin of reading: spiritual pursuit. Reading in its essence is a most private cultural activity and now it's back to its nature, so isn't it a good thing?

A declining readership doesn't necessarily mean that people are getting away from books. On the contrary, we are having a more colorful and enriched reading life. Our cultural environment and spiritual sphere are expanding. So we don't need to make a fuss about this matter.

Bi Shicheng (columnist at Shaanxi-based Chinese Business View): The media put the blame on the people, saying the declining paper book readership results from their blundering mentality. At the same time, 11 Central Government agencies jointly encourage the masses to "love reading books and read good books."

In such a time when everything is developing so fast, it makes little sense to blame or encourage. The declining book readership, to some degree, is actually a good thing.

The book market is developing according to its own rules. Therefore, interpreting this phenomenon based on the rule of value, we find it is book publishers who bear the primary responsibility.