PUBLISHING houses, libraries and universities in Shanghai held various activities over the weekend to mark World Reading Day yesterday.

Shanghai Educational Publishing House launched a service to allow consumers to place orders for publishing books out of print.

Xu Fang, vice president of the publishing house, said “For the special project, we will print the wanted book even if the reader orders only one.”

In its role as an educational press house, the publishing house also opened a study room for teachers to read books and organize reading activities.

Yu Yi, a renowned educator in Shanghai, said: “We should embrace the digital era but should not only read on screens. Printed books had a special power to make people get down to read and think deeply.”

A “Reading Marathon” was organized by Shanghai Library and by others. It was attended by 1,200 citizens. The competition required participants to finish reading the digital version of an unpublished work within six hours and then answer questions. Organizers said that they wanted to promote reading in a simple but interesting format to help to develop reading habits.

“We are glad to see that participants are mainly young people,” said Xu Qiang, director of the readers service center of the library.

The winners will be announced on Saturday.

Fudan University, meanwhile, established a poetry data collection center in its library to promote poetic creation and study among its teachers and students.