Faced with endless screen-scrolling and AI summaries, people seem to "read text" more often than ever yet pause less to think. As technology reshapes the landscape of reading, public libraries stand at the crest of the times—insights from Local History and Genealogy Section, International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) Chair Nagatsuka Takashi, along with Tokyo Metropolitan Central Library, Ishikawa Prefectural Library, and Busan Metropolitan Library, together respond to a pressing question: amid the flood of information, how can reading remain something worth looking forward to?
The 2026 ASIA-PACIFIC PUBLIC LIBRARY FORUM IN TAIWAN, themed "Strategies, Innovation, and the Future of Reading Promotion," brought together experts from various countries to explore service blueprints that break traditional frameworks. Japan and Korea, located in Northeast Asia, offered in-depth analysis from the dimensions of policy, space, community, and technology, attempting to answer how public libraries can bring "reading" back into people's daily lives in an age when AI and short-form video are rewriting readers' attention spans.
Japan's Policy Compass for the Digital Age
Local History and Genealogy Section, International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) Chair Nagatsuka Takashi, speaking on "Facing the Society of the Future: Challenges for Public Libraries in Promoting Reading Culture," opened with a striking statistic: as of 2026, smartphones account for 98.3% of mobile phones in Japan, meaning "the way people exchange information is now dominated almost entirely by mobile devices, fundamentally reshaping how news and information circulate".
Even more notable is the pace at which generative AI has spread. Nagatsuka Takashi pointed out that the proportion of Japanese junior high school students using generative AI jumped from about 13% to 40% between 2024 and 2025 alone. With Japan's Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology rolling out the "GIGA School Initiative," compulsory education is shifting rapidly to a "one device per student" model, moving curricula away from printed textbooks toward ICT-based collaborative activities. "In an era of such technological change, libraries must reexamine the role they should play in society and keep learning to fulfill their duties as a new type of library," Nagatsuka explained.
Although 76% of local governments in Japan have formal reading-promotion plans, "smaller local governments still lag significantly behind in developing such plans," he said. Only about 10% of public schools offer e-book services, compared to 57% of prefectural libraries and 35% of municipal libraries, showing that digital reading has yet to truly enter daily life.
Nagatsuka also offered a thought-provoking contrast: about 63% of Japanese adults read "not even one book a month," yet 75% of that group still consume large amounts of text daily through social media and news websites. "Unlike the UK, which centers reading promotion on 'Reading for Pleasure,' Japan focuses more on 'reducing the proportion of non-readers,' aiming to help everyone improve their learning and life skills through reading," he said.
Looking ahead, Nagatsuka named the "generational digital divide" as the key challenge. In response, Japan's public libraries are advancing diverse physical and hybrid programs—deepening the "Book start" program for newborns, launching local initiatives like "Little Librarian Radio Station" and reading-integrated cooking classes, and moving toward smart, AI-powered personalized reading support platforms. "Libraries shouldn't just be spaces for shelving printed books, but nodes connecting traditional literacy with new digital intelligence," he emphasized.
Tokyo Metropolitan Library Opens the Door to Reading
Tokyo Metropolitan Library, comprising the Tokyo Metropolitan Central Library and the Tama Library, holds 2.32 million volumes, with the Tama Library nicknamed the "Tokyo Magazine Bank" for its collection of around 19,000 periodicals. Serving a city of nearly 14.08 million people, the library centers its work on three pillars—promoting children's reading activities, creating accessible reading environments, and supporting the digital transformation (DX) of reading activities—to gently open the door to reading for "all readers". For children's reading, the library follows the "Fifth Tokyo Basic Plan for Promoting Children's Reading Activities (2026-2030)," focused on four principles: age-appropriate reading habits, digital integration, diversity and inclusion, and respecting children's perspectives.
Tokyo Metropolitan Central Library Director Tomoko Suemura explained: "We care deeply about one thing: every child, regardless of physical condition, should have a reading experience of their own". To this end, staff personally visit special-needs schools to provide sign-language story time and individualized storytelling services, while hospitalized children can "attend" library events remotely via operated robots; the Tama Library's "Apple Shelf" regularly stocks Braille books and easy-to-read "LL Books," making accessible reading a standard part of daily service.
"Accessibility services are not a recent slogan for us," Suemura stressed, noting that Tokyo Metropolitan Library began offering individualized reading services for visually impaired and print-disabled readers as early as 1972, and expanded this care online starting in 2023, continuing to produce audiobooks and DAISY materials while building staff and volunteer training systems with other public and Braille libraries.
To make its vast collection more intuitively discoverable amid digital transformation, Tokyo Metropolitan Library launched two digital tools, "Digital BookShelf" and "AI ChatShelf," helping users explore the collection across language barriers. "Readers no longer need to learn complex library classification systems first to easily find books that interest them," Suemura said. Looking forward, the library is planning its next-generation central library around the concept of a "Library for Creation," aiming to be not just a place to read books but a starting point for citizens to create new things.
Ishikawa Prefectural Library Brings Reading Closer to Life
Located in central Honshu and famed for its "Kaga Hyakumangoku" castle-town culture, Ishikawa Prefectural Library has over a century of history, with its original building constructed in 1912 and reopened in Kanazawa City in July 2022. Current Director Shunsaku Tamura, also Professor Emeritus at Keio University, sums up the century-old library's operating philosophy as a "Palace of Wisdom".
Tamura stated plainly that the new library's mission is "to awaken every visitor's curiosity and joy of reading, including those who never had a reading habit or had never set foot in a library". The new building completely overturns the traditional image of "library equals quiet reading room," allowing conversation and photography in most areas and permitting eating and drinking in designated zones. "We want this to be a free space that welcomes all kinds of possibilities, not a place full of 'don'ts,'" he said.
Inside, circular bookshelves radiating from the center create an immersive visual impact, while gentle slopes and looping walkways let readers browse thousands of volumes almost unconsciously, encountering unexpected books from any direction. Tamura explained: "We try to lower the psychological barrier readers face with unfamiliar subjects, making 'chance encounters' the norm in this library". The library organizes its collection under two parallel systems—traditional decimal classification for dedicated deep readers, and an original "12 Themes of Encountering Books" that crosses disciplinary boundaries, regrouping books by life, creativity, work, and local culture. "Staff reorganized the collection book by book and created hundreds of sub-themes," Tamura emphasized, noting this was not just a classification overhaul but an effort to "give readers an entry points closer to daily life".
Busan Metropolitan Library Meets Reading Throughout the City
Korea's public libraries face a visible reading crisis in recent years. Busan Metropolitan Library Director Euna Park cited a February 2026 Chosun Ilbo survey showing that "the failure rate for timed reading tests among Korean middle schoolers reaches 92%, and 98% among elementary schoolers". Short-form video and AI summaries have created a "zigzag skimming" eye-movement pattern, rapidly eroding traditional left-to-right linear reading. "We don't lack text—we lack time to think," she lamented.
Rather than reinforcing hardware, Busan Metropolitan Library broke down its walls, "extending the library across the entire city". Park highlighted the 2025 "Seaside Library" series: the "Sunrise Library" at Minrak Waterside Park from June to July, the "Sunset Library" at Dadaepo Beach from September to October, and the "Seaside Reading Zone" at Gwangalli Beach. Readers can sit and read in beach tents, alongside "Book Café Meetups" with authors and citizens, and "Switch Off" digital-detox reading parties “we let the sound of waves replace phone notifications, and nature's rhythm replace algorithms," she said. The "Mind Wave" reading-healing program, combining curated music, beach walks, and group reading, further opens a dialogue with the inner self as readers open a book.
Discussing city-level reading movements, Park introduced "One Book One Busan," now in its 23rd year. Launched in 2004, the program has 3.3 million citizens vote each year to select one book, spreading reading over a year from libraries, bookstores, and cafés to schools and public spaces, uniting the whole city in shared reading. "This isn't just a statistic—it's a city's social capital," she stressed, noting that 23 years of accumulated reading discussions have been key to turning strangers into conversation partners and conversations into community resilience.
Facing the challenges of the AI era, Park does not place her hopes on faster internet or more screens: "What citizens truly crave is quiet, connection, and time for self-dialogue". Going forward, Busan Metropolitan Library will position itself as a public platform for "Connection and Contemplation," embedding humanistic values deeply into every piece of digital design.
Returning to the Roots of Reading
From Nagatsuka Takashi's ecological diagnosis at the policy level, to Tokyo Metropolitan Library's meticulous work on children's reading promotion, accessibility, and digital transformation, to Ishikawa Prefectural Library's spatial reinvention of encounters between people and books, and Busan Metropolitan Library's gentle integration of reading into the city's everyday scenery—all challenge the public's stereotypes of libraries. Amid the digital flood, libraries are choosing to return to the roots of reading, opening their doors and lowering the threshold to invite every reader in anew. This precious public commitment is the most enduring and irreplaceable core value of public libraries in the AI era.