According to the Department of Public Services of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the People's Republic of China, by the end of 2021, the actual number of readers of public libraries nationwide exceeded 103 million. In 2012, the number was 24.8451 million, which increased by more than 315 percent. The data reflects the expanding coverage of public libraries, the attractiveness and effectiveness of services, and the accelerated advancement of public culture and the cause of reading for all.

In the past 10 years, a set of laws and regulations were put into place making specific provisions on the construction of public library facilities, operation, service, management system, and protection mechanism and providing legal protection for the people's basic cultural rights and interests such as reading books and newspapers.

By the end of 2021, there were 3,215 public libraries, more than 40,000 township cultural stations, more than 570,000 village-level comprehensive cultural service centers, and more than 580,000 farmhouse libraries, all of which are open to the public free of charge. To provide quality reading resources to the grassroots, the general branch library system has been implemented at the county level so that the library resources at the community and village levels have been transformed from "single supply" to "multiple supplies" and "interactive supply", which have enriched the book resources at the grassroots level. As of June 2022, 2,642 counties (cities and districts) have completed the general branch library system.