As spring brings warmth and renewal in early 2026, the official launch of Guangdong Province's Lifelong Learning Platform has sparked a wave of enthusiasm for learning across the region. In Maoming, this spirit of learning merges with the local "Haoxin Culture," transforming the concept of lifelong education into a tangible, participatory, and beneficial daily experience for residents through diverse and innovative measures.
Cross-boundary integration is injecting new vitality into the joy of reading. At the "Litchi Hometown Children's Reading" event in Gaozhou, children are not sitting formally to read but are instead running and playing among lychee groves, creating traditional handicrafts under the guidance of intangible cultural heritage inheritors, and experiencing farming culture through agricultural activities. This is a vivid example of Maoming's innovative "Reading+" model, making public reading more dynamic and engaging.
On the sixth day of the Lunar New Year, while the festive atmosphere lingered, a New Year reading session titled "Galloping into Spring with Reading" was held in Gaozhou, deeply embedding the philosophy of reading for personal growth. On February 21, a poetry recital themed "Inheriting Chinese Culture, Celebrating a Poetic New Year" filled the Wenguang Tower Square in Huazhou with the sound of reading, attracting numerous parents and children and allowing the fragrance of books to permeate every corner of the city. Xinyi City has carefully developed special brands such as "Xinyu Story Time," "Little Librarian," and "Book Exchange and Friend-Making," integrating public reading with popular science and combining lifelong learning with fun.
In recent years, a reader salon activity base, jointly created by the Maoming Daily Press and the Maoming Library, regularly hosts seminars, poetry recitals, and new book sharing events. The cultural column "Maoming in Stories" invites renowned authors to interact with readers, sparking intellectual exchanges. From "Litchi Hometown Children's Reading" to the "Baiqiao Village Xinhua Reading Space," and from "New Year Reading" to "Reading during the Local Festival," Maoming's public reading brand development showcases diversity, local character, and a spirit of sharing, with broad appeal being its standout feature.
Efforts to build a dense network are bridging the "last mile" of public cultural services. At the Shangbin Community Party-Mass Service Center in Maonan District, a "library at the doorstep" is highly popular among residents. Last year, the community signed an agreement with the Maoming Library to establish a mobile book service, through which the library provided approximately 1,000 books covering classic literature, children's books, and popular science. Using a book rotation model, the service meets the diverse needs of children, working adults, and the elderly.
"The mobile book service truly bridges the last mile of public cultural services, allowing residents to access good books right at their doorstep," said a representative from the Maoming Library. Through Party-building leadership, they are actively exploring a new "Party-building + Culture" model, extending reading services to residents' doorsteps and regularly organizing activities like reading promotions and parent-child reading sessions, making the mobile book service a spiritual home that brings people together. By 2025, the Maoming Library had established 81 external service points in schools, military camps, communities, towns, and institutions, including 10 book漂流 points, 39 mobile book services, and 32 mobile branches.
The fragrance of books is not limited to urban communities but also fills the vast countryside. During the 2025 Southern China Book Fair Maoming sub-venue event, mobile book vans loaded with intellectual nourishment traveled to rural libraries in towns like Xinpo, Jintang, and Yangjiao. As the van doors opened like wings, they instantly transformed into "mini-libraries," attracting young readers who eagerly gathered to select picture books. In addition to mobile book sales, a series of themed sharing sessions were held simultaneously in rural libraries. Each good book and sharing session is like a seed sown in the fertile soil of the countryside, fostering a vibrant cultural revival as reading habits take root and knowledge grows.
Digital empowerment is building a new ecosystem for shared learning. At the opening of the 2025 Lifelong Learning Week, crowds gathered in front of the Haoxin Stage in Xinhu Park. In the mobile AIGC experience zone, volunteers patiently taught elderly residents how to use smart software. With assistance, one resident, Ms. Huang, instantly "visited" the Forbidden City using her photo, exclaiming, "One is never too old to learn! I need to learn more about AI to keep up with this fast-paced era." This scene epitomizes Maoming's embrace of the digital age to promote public learning.
Maoming has established a community education network covering city, county, town, and village levels, creating one national-level lifelong learning brand project, recognizing three provincial "Citizen Learning Stars," and achieving one provincial brand project. The capacity for lifelong education services continues to improve, providing a solid foundation for public learning. Digital technology is not only changing how people learn but also reshaping the sharing of book resources. "Before, if I wanted to borrow a book from the Foshan Library, I had to make a special trip. Now, with a few clicks, the book is delivered to my door," excitedly said a reader, Mr. Chen, showing a book he had just received through the "Zhishu Daoli" cloud borrowing service. This convenience stems from a bold breakthrough in Maoming's public cultural services.
In August 2025, the "Easy Book·Foshan-Maoming Shared Reading—Book Revival" event was held at the Maoming Library. As a key initiative under the Guangdong Public Cultural Service Community pilot, Foshan's pioneering "home book sharing" model was implemented locally in Maoming for the first time, effectively revitalizing idle book resources in the region.
As advocated by the Guangdong Lifelong Learning Platform, "lifelong learning enables everyone to shine." Maoming is nurturing the city's character through the fragrance of books and illuminating individual dreams with reading. As learning opportunities spread to every urban and rural corner, as learning content aligns with the times, and as learning outcomes benefit countless households, the cultural ambiance of "Haoxin Maoming" grows richer, injecting continuous humanistic vitality and innovative energy into high-quality development.