Octagonal Pavilion Library, Chinese library in central Macau, China.
The Octagonal Pavilion Library is a library housed in an octagonal structure near S. Francisco Garden in central Macau. The building contains a reading and newspaper room with collections managed by the Chinese Chamber of Commerce.
The octagonal building was designed by architect Chen Kunpei in 1926 and completed in 1927; it first housed a restaurant and a billiard room in the former Nam Van Garden. In 1947 He Xian, vice-chairman of the Macau Chinese Chamber of Commerce, bought the pavilion and donated it to the chamber for a public reading room. The reading and newspaper room opened on 1 November 1948 under Governor Albano Rodrigues de Oliveira, and it is regarded as Macau's first Chinese library and first public library.
The library reflects Chinese educational traditions in Macau and draws readers seeking to engage with classical works and contemporary publications. Visitors can experience the importance of knowledge sharing within the local community.
The reading room opens 9:00–12:00 and 19:00–22:00, and is closed on Mondays and public holidays. It sits on the edge of S. Francisco Garden, so it can be combined with a walk through that garden in central Macau.
The library still uses the Dewey Decimal Classification, making it one of the very few Chinese-language libraries that do so. Its holdings number 20,000 volumes, with another 15,000 kept in the Chinese Chamber of Commerce storeroom. Among its 90-plus periodical titles are bound volumes of early Wah Kiu Yat Po, Macao Daily News, Wen Wei Po, Ta Kung Pao and Guangming Daily, useful for research on the 1950s to 1970s.
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