On 5 March, the Staff Conference of the National Library of China (NLC), 2021 was held in the NLC Arts Centre. Zhang Xu, a member of the CPC Committee of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism and Vice Minister of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, and Rao Quan, Director of the NLC and Deputy Secretary of the CPC Committee of the NLC, attended the conference and made a speech respectively. The conference was hosted by Wei Dawei, Secretary of the CPC Committee of the NLC and Deputy Director of the NLC. More than 700 people attended the conference, including Chen Binbin, First-class Inspector of the Department of Public Services, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the NLC Deputy Directors Zhang Zhiqing, Sun Yigang, Chen Ying, Wang Dongbo, and Zhang Jun, workers of each division and department, and the representatives of the retired.

In his speech, Zhang Xu, Vice Minister of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, said that in 2020, guided by Xi Jinping's socialism with Chinese characteristics in the new era, the NLC directors carried out the spirit of General Secretary Xi Jinping's reply letter, carefully implemented the decision-making and deployment of the CPC Central Committee and the CPC Committee of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, and made solid progress in implementing the opinions made by the CPC Committee of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. The NLC held a series of activities of the 1^st anniversary of the General Secretary's reply letter & the 111^th anniversary of the NLC, carried out reading services, such as the selection of Wenjin Book Award, National Library Open Course, the NLC Forum, and so on, selected the 6^th National Rare Ancient Book Directory and the 6^th Group of National Key Ancient Books Preservation and Conservation Institutions, and collected The Introduction to the Analects of Confucius in French Confucius and other valuable documents. The NLC won the battle on epidemic prevention and control and resuming work, and made remarkable achievements in all aspects.

Zhang Xu, Vice Minister of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, stressed that this year was the first year of implementing the 14^th Five-year Plan and starting a new journey of building a socialist modern country in an all-round way, as well as the 100^th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China. The NLC had designated this year as a "transformational development year", with clear development ideas, outstanding work priorities and powerful measures. He also put forward clear requirements on how to further improve the work of the NLC. First, we should adhere to the correct political direction and unswervingly strengthen the Party's political construction. Second, we should adhere to the principle of focusing on the center and serving the overall situation, and make solid progress. Third, we should actively apply modern technology to innovate the service mode and improve the service efficiency of public library.

On behalf of the NLC leadership, Rao Quan, Director of the NLC, summarized the main work in 2020, and deployed key tasks for 2021 from 6 aspects, i.e. "holding a series of activities to commemorate the 100^th anniversary of the founding of Communist Party of China, carrying out in-depth study and education of the Party History, promoting smart transformation and development of libraries in the nationwide, carrying forward the excellent traditional culture, comprehensively improving the level of public cultural services, promoting the construction of the national literature and information resources database and national bibliography, and striving to improve the level of governance and the ability to perform duties.

Meanwhile, Rao Quan put forward four demands: first, we should always adhere to the correct political direction and serve the overall situation around the center; second, we should always keep pace with the times and strengthen learning based on one's position; third, we should always unite with each other and make efforts to tide over the difficulties; fourth, we should always adhere to the bottom-line thinking, and earnestly undertake the responsibility of safe production.

In the conference, the NLC leaders read out the decisions on awarding and commending various rewards in 2020. The leaders presented honorary certificates to the representatives who got awards in 2020 and staff who had worked in the NLC for 30 years in recognition of their contributions to the development of the NLC.