Into the temple of the written word

In a laid-back atmosphere, bibliophiles from near and far can luxuriate in Jiaojiehe Village's book nirvana.[Photo by Zou Hong/China Daily]

A woman named Yang, in her 70s, walked out of the main door of the library, inching slowly forward with the help of a walking stick. Meanwhile, her granddaughter Zhang Xia was looking for her child, who, drawn by the water, had bolted away from her mother.

"This is a nice place," Yang said. "We drove here from the city and have been here for a while. It's very pleasant."

Two 4-year-old girls, accompanied by their parents, played by the stream and one, nicknamed Xiaotu (Little Rabbit), was drenched, laughing that her soaking pants were her swimsuit.

And even if most of the people here today had come to see the building and what lies inside it, Little Rabbit clearly had other priorities.

"I love this place because there are books," she said. "But I like the stream more."

In most modern architecture, two of the most dominant materials are steel and glass, as is the case with Liyuan Library, opened in 2011.

However, one of the many things that sets it apart is its outside walls, formed by about 45,000 dark firewood sticks standing upright between two steel frames. In total, there are nine levels of firewood-stick fence, each about one meter high.

The man who has been appointed sentinel over these walls is Zhou Liming, 52, a villager from Jiaojiehe, who takes care of repairs in the library, too. Zhou, a scaffolder by trade, literally has personal stakes in the library, for when it was being built he spent three months picking the 45,000 sticks that went into the structure from the surrounding mountains.

These days at the weekend, the only two days that the library is open to the public, Zhou religiously and rigorously patrols the building, looking for any signs that any of the handpicked sticks are rotting and need replacing.

The library edifice itself is nine meters high, but Zhou, with a full display of the rough-and-ready spirit of people in the area, declared in a low, gravelly voice that even when he is at the top of the building inspecting sticks, he does so unfettered by the kinds of protection such work normally demands.