From May 27 to 29, China has been invited for the first time ever as the Guest of Honor country at Bookexpo America, which was held in New York. At the ceremony, the Chinese side donated 1,000 books each to the three public libraries in New York.

Bridget Quinn-Carey, interim president and CEO of Queens Library, said they were thrilled to receive the donation.

"Right now we have hundreds of thousands of Chinese books," she said. "We collect about 25 languages, but Chinese-language books represent a huge percentage of our international language materials, because there's such a big demand for them."

"We actually spend about a hundred thousand dollars a year on Chinese language materials," she said. "We got quite a number of Chinese books every year. They have been popular for a number of years."

As one of the three library systems serving New York City, and the fifth largest public library system in the United States, the Brooklyn Public Library is the public library system of the borough of Brooklyn in New York City.

Frank Xu, manager of the Languages and Literature Division of Brooklyn Public Library, told Xinhua that it's the same situation with Queens Library -- the number of readers who come to their library looking for Chinese books has also increased.

He said this was probably due to two reasons. Firstly, more Chinese immigrants are moving to Brooklyn. Secondly, the new residents of different ethnic groups moving there have a relatively higher education background.

"They ask for more Chinese books, on topics of Chinese economy, philosophy, culture, music and so on," he said.

"In addition to the Chinese immigrants, more Americans are becoming interested in China. They like to read about travel in China, learning Chinese and Chinese philosophy, as well as some novels written by contemporary Chinese authors which have been translated into English," Xu said.

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