According to ‘2010 Annual Report about Reading Promotion’ by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, public libraries in Cheongju have 0.68 books per person on average. It is only half of the national average of 1.3 books.
 Cheongju started a movement named ‘Onebook Onecity', to encourage citizens to read more books. Their slogan is, 'People Bind Together by Books.’ Most libraries in Cheongju, however, could not reach the national average of 89,930 volumes, such as the North Library(73,680), the West Library(65,561), Sandang Library(42,294) and Sinyulbong Children’s Library(36,282). On the other hand, Chungcheongbuk-do Jungang Library and Cheogju Library are above the average.
 Also, most libraries in Cheongju don’t have enough seats in their reading rooms. Cheongju, where the average seating capacity of public libraries is 297 people, was ranked 11th among the 12 big cities, which are inhabited by more than 500,000 people. While the average number of seats in Korea is 458, most libraries in Cheongju have about 100 seats or have no reading rooms.
There are great gaps between the Chungcheongbuk-do Jungang Library and the other libraries.
For example, the Chungcheongbuk-do Jungang Library has 9 times more books and seats than Sinyulbong Children’s Library.
 Lee Hye-jin, who is a Cheongju citizen, said, “The Chungcheongbuk-do Jungang Library often buys new books and possesses enough books. Besides, this library has a good automated system and a big reading room.” She also seemed to be quite satisfied with the library. She added negative opinions about other libraries, “I have been to the North Library. In most cases, the library didn’t have the book that I wanted to find, and it was uncomfortable because it had no break room.”
 Meanwhile, Cheongju is constructing the South Library in Bunpyeong, which is scheduled to be completed by November. Lee Seok-hwan, who is living in Cheongju, said, “I heard that these days local governments are bearing the burden of an enormous debt ratio because they borrowed much money to build new facilities competitively. However, I want to complement existing libraries rather than build new libraries.” He appealed for improvement of Cheonju's libraries.