Public Digital Cultural Services for National Reading Promotion in Canada

Amid rapid digital advances such as artificial intelligence, countries worldwide face shared challenges in the digital and intelligent upgrading of reading promotion, making public digital cultural services an essential lever for deepening national reading. Drawing on case studies and a review of the literature, this study examines Canada's public digital cultural service system for national reading promotion, analyzing how "everyday reading" remains viable in an intelligent society. The research finds that through multi-stakeholder collaboration among government departments and social institutions, flexible policy adaptation, and deep integration of technologies, Canada has constructed a normalized, precise public digital cultural service ecosystem for national reading. Regarding capacity cultivation, Canada views digital-intelligent literacy as a collective social resource, relying on social public welfare forces to deepen "digital literacy" campaigns across all-age population and enhance overall public literacy. Within the service support network, a benign interaction pattern has formed through the dynamic empowerment of agile policies, systematic support from special publishing funds, and the bridging and intermediary role of industry associations in digital transformation. In terms of resource supply, digital resources such as audiobooks and e-books have achieved universal, public-oriented availablity; meanwhile, accessible publishing has advanced toward a "born accessible" model rooted in serving special groups, and public libraries have implemented popularization initiatives for new technology skills such as AI to narrow the digital intelligence divide and uphold digital equity. In terms of scenario building, nationwide reading brand initiatives build cross-platform, multi-channel, and all-media communication networks to empower social connectivity. Family-oriented online interactive co-reading and integrated reading-and-writing experiences are enhanced via digital platforms, while diverse theme-based activities are regularly executed through the "thematic week" mode, substantially expanding digital reading scenarios. Driven synergistically by "publishing support" and "digital empowerment," Canada consolidates the content foundation of national reading, elevates public service levels, and promotes grounded applications of digital cultural services through multi-dimensional scenario building. Based on this holistic analysis, this study proposes that China needs to leverage "reading legislation" amid the developmental reality of the intelligent society. Proceeding from local realities and goal orientation, we should selectively learn from Canada's characteristic practices in public digital cultural services. These include: coordinating the digital-intelligent advancement of the publishing sector with the provision of digital resources for universal reading promotion; instituting a reader-centered digital service logic that guides readers from basic digital access toward heightened digital-intelligent literacy; and mobilizing a broad coalition of societal actors to transform reading promotion into an interactive arena characterized by extensive reader participation. Overall, it is essential to adhere to a reading promotion mindset that integrates reading into daily life, to match basic needs and higher-level aspirations across digital-intelligence scenarios, and implement layered public cultural supply for populations with diverse reading proficiencies and technology acceptance capabilities. By cultivating digital reading abilities from shallow to deep and promoting the continuous enhancement of readers' literacy, digital reading participation and digitized experiences can be deeply integrated into the daily cultural lives of the public in an intelligent society.