The Beijing subway has stopped using paper tickets that have been in use for 38 years.

The Beijing Daily reports a new automatic fare collection (AFC) system is being installed in all subways stations in the Chinese capital.

Passengers will need to produce their magnetic strip tickets or mass transit smart cards twice when going through the system machines, both entering and exiting the gates.

Jia Peng, a Beijing Subway Company official, said the new AFC system would help collect information on how many people entered and exited the subways at different time periods of a day. The data would help the company to better organize the frequency of trains.

In addition, the magnetic strip tickets that have replaced the paper tickets could be used repeatedly — about 2,500 to 3,000 times — which saves a lot of paper.

Beijing, the host city of this summer’s Olympic Games, now has five subway lines with 140 kilometers of track, transporting millions of passengers daily. It plans to add three subway lines this year and reach 200 km in length.

Worldwide, paper tickets are disappearing and smart cards taking over. The next step will be where one smart card covers all forms of transportation except, perhaps, overseas flight.
Source: China Daily

China’s political advisers called for updating the country’s traditional paper-based publishing industry by digital means in light of the rapid development of information technology.

A special investigation group, composed of members of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), is in Shanghai to conduct field research about China’s publishing industry.

The 11-day investigation in Shanghai and the southwestern Sichuan Province, organized by the Education, Science, Culture and Health Committee (ESCHC) of the CPPCC, focussed on reform and innovation of the publishing industry.

In Shanghai, delegates visited the Shanghai Century Publishing Group (SCPG) and Shanghai Xinhua Media. Both have taken the lead in reforming and modernizing the traditional publishing industry.

The SCGP has published many digital products in recent years, including electronic books and an online dictionary and education program.

According to a culture ‘blue paper’ released by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences early this year, 30% of handset users indicated that they would sign up to receive books and newspapers through mobile phones within the next five years.

The blue paper predicted that libraries and other users would purchase e-books and digital newspapers valued at more than RMB1 billion ($144 million) during those five years.

It also estimated advertising revenues, linked to e-books and digital newspapers purchased by netizens and handset users, would reach RMB5 billion in the next five years.
Source: China View

In China, the paper from used text books is recycled through paper mills and returns to the schools as new textbooks. In theory, this could be seen as energy-saving but the reality is very different.

Statistics from the General Administration of Press and Publication (GAPP) show China used up 5.24 million tons of paper last year, up 7.9% on 2004, with 11.38% of this used for textbooks.

Textbooks are being printed more than ever before and their prices lead all book charts. However, among 4,858 kinds of textbooks registered, only 1,676 kinds are first editions.

Professor Zhu Yongxin, former president of Suzhou University and a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), said, ‘The number of Chinese students currently in their nine-year compulsory education period stands at 177.74 million. If calculated at 2,500 grams of textbook paper per student per year, more than 450,000 tons of paper are needed annually, or the felling of 9 million trees. If half of all textbooks could be reused for three to five years, this would lead to a vast saving of trees and energy.’

Of course, if China switched to a simple electronic digital reader then those trees would not die at all.

Pan Wennian, a publishing expert from Anhui University, said that recycling textbooks would act against the interests of publishing houses. Given the profits made by the latter on yearly textbook sales, a nationwide policy shift towards cyclical usage would deprive them of a regular source of income. Tough. Trees are more important than publishing profits. And digital readers are the way to go.
Source: China.org.cn

There is a school of thought that the future for reading lies with digital reading machines. None has yet appeared that satisfies every need — the Sony Reader is very close — but it will happen.

Now a survey conducted by the Chinese Institute of Publishing Science (CIPS) shows that the number of Chinese reading books has decreased sharply since 1999, but the number of those turning to the Internet to read has soared sevenfold in the same period.

A series of studies conducted by the institute between 1999 and 2006 found that only 48.7% of Chinese read at least one book in 2005, down from 60.4% in 1999.

Wu Shulin, vice-minister of the General Administration of Press and Publications (GAPP), told a forum on video and electronic products in Shanghai that the number of online readers has doubled every year since 1999. He said, ‘”The development of digital technology and the Internet has changed people’s reading habits.’

Chinese read about 4.5 books every year on average, far fewer than the 50 books read by Americans in a year. Lack of free time amid fast-paced modern lifestyles was the main reason given by most of the respondents for not reading many books.

Researchers also found that the culture of reading has declined, with 45.9% of young respondents aged 18 to 19 saying they are not in the habit of reading. Literature and publishing experts have voiced their concern about the decline of reading in China as they have about the same situation all over the world.

Huang Guorong, deputy secretary-general of the China Publication Association, told China Youth Daily that online reading materials are mainly for fun and fail to educate people in the same way that books do. A group of National People’s Congress deputies even put forward a motion last month for a National Reading Day to promote people’s awareness.

It could be argued that they have the wrong end of the stick. What is needed is a very simple, inexpensive reading machine which can be loaded up with assorted texts. Students especially have difficulty accessing textbooks that would improve their education. The simple answer is the digitization of books and the development of an ultra-cheap, ultra-portable reading device. It can be done and if any nation can do it that nation is China.
Source: China.org.cn