The first Shandong Reading Conference and Qilu Book Festival, sponsored by the publicity department of Shandong province, kicked off in Jinan, the provincial capital, on Aug 17.

The Mengyin County Library offers a parent-child reading room in Linyi, Shandong province. [Photo/Dazhong News]

During the reading promotion event, a series of exhibitions, such as the national reading achievements exhibition, themed book exhibitions, the children's picture book exhibition, and exhibitions on ancient books, will be held at Shandong Book City.

The "2022 Shandong Book Fair" will be held as well, with the main exhibition venue set up at Shandong Book City, and sub-venues at Xinhua bookstores in cities, districts and counties throughout the province.

During the book fair, more than 5,000 reading promotion activities will be carried out, and book coupons worth 10 million yuan ($1.47 million) will be issued via both online and offline channels.

Wang Xuedian, a professor at Shandong University and editor-in-chief of the Journal of Literature, History and Philosophy, and Ju Ping, a China Central Television host, discussed books as the ambassadors for the 2022 Shandong Reading Conference.

Shandong has a long reading tradition that dates back to ancient times, said Wang, and he advocated that everyone should read, and read good books. Ju urges every parent to encourage their children to read and to be led by example.

A student reads a book at the Mengyin County Library in Linyi, Shandong province [Photo/Dazhong News]

Shandong has made great efforts to promote reading across the province and build a "literate Shandong". In recent years, the province has conducted more than 60,000 online and offline reading activities, donated more than 6 million books, and had over 33 million participants.

Up to now, there are 154 public libraries at the provincial, city and county levels, 506 urban libraries, 56,000 rural libraries, 19,500 staff libraries, and more than 22,000 rural Confucian lecture halls.