Just as pioneers are to Nanjing and Wansheng are to Beijing, after more than ten years of development, Wanbang Bookstore has become an important cultural landmark in Xi'an. As the head office of Wanbang, at the end of 2015, Wanbang Bookstore Guanzhong University Bookstore was forced to close the store for 2 years due to business pressure, which made countless book lovers sigh. In the minds of many locals, Guanzhong University Study is the best bookstore in Xi'an.
Due to the general environment, humanities books are becoming less and less popular, and the publishing and bookstore industries are changing their business strategies accordingly. Even so, the books in the study room of Guanzhong University are still mainly selected literature, art, humanities and social sciences books, and there are also a considerable number of design and lifestyle books, while there are relatively few practical books such as teaching aids and reference books.
The study room of Guanzhong University is divided into 3 floors, and the iconic old carriage wheel at the door means "five cars of learning and wealth"; The first floor is a café, and the second floor is a children's playground consisting of a picture book hall, a music classroom, and a calligraphy class. The third layer is the most unique tonality and is the main body of the bookstore. The books placed at its entrance are still mainly humanities and social sciences, rather than more universal bestsellers and various "successology" books. Next to this area, a tiled display case showcases display some of the bestsellers with handwritten testimonial cards, which also focus on literature, popular science, and history.
The study room of Guanzhong University has a clear structure, and in the center of the bookstore is several commodity display cabinets arranged vertically. This area specializes in the sale of cultural and creative products, among which some stationery, tea, and handmade leather bags are the bookstore's own brands. The books, on the other hand, are spaced apart by this midline and distributed on both sides.
Near the elevator side is the area with the highest density of books in the store, and all kinds of books are extended by large shelves, including Taiwanese books and a variety of literary and economic masterpieces. The study room of Guanzhong University provides display space for high-quality reading materials such as the Ideal Chinese Book Series, the New Knowledge Library, and the Chinese Translation of World Academic Classics Series, some of which are not covered by plastic seals and are exclusively for readers to read. It is commendable that some series are difficult to make a profit, and the Guanzhong University Study Room has a place for them, and Heidegger's Anthology and Bataille's Inner Experience can be regarded as examples.
The layout on the other side is a bit messy. It's easy to get lost in this space, and even if there is a sign attached to each shelf, it's easy to find a book. The reason for this is the overlap in the classification of books: foreign literature books are divided into two rows of shelves, which are placed next to natural and home books and handicraft products respectively; Historical and social science books are placed in a centralized manner, but there are separate shelves of world history and Chinese history in the area near the line-bound book cabinets, and so on. It is worth mentioning that there are more seats on this side, and there are several separate small spaces at the end of the road for resting, each space is surrounded by books on different topics (mainly related to philosophy, art and popular science, etc.), which is more private, but all of them are paid seats.
Under the impact of the trend of electronic reading, physical bookstores are struggling, and it is even more difficult to run independent bookstores that are not market-oriented. Almost all independent bookstores in Xi'an are losing money. Guanzhong University Bookstore could not devote all its lifeblood to the books themselves, so they turned the bookstore into a thriving cultural space.
In the Guanzhong Study, customers will also find several areas with unique caves. For example, in the maker space, customers can pay to observe or experience the production process of card wallets, wind chimes and other objects, and feel the fun of woodworking, cloth art, leather goods, incense and other fine crafts, which is also the characteristic of Guanzhong Study. The stepped lounge area is the venue for cultural events, with eight unique steps, plenty of seating, and natural light from skylights creating an ideal reading space. The fly in the ointment is that compared with bookstores such as Yanjiyou, which are famous for coffee, there is still some room for improvement in the level of coffee shops in Guanzhong Dashufang.
For those looking for a secluded place to relax, Guanzhong Study will not disappoint. There is not a lot of traffic here, and it is relatively quiet. In addition, the bookstore is close to Daxingshan Temple, and Xiaozhai subway station is only a 7-minute walk away, and the transportation is also very convenient.
