One Way Street Library has given new meaning to the phrase "public communication."

Founded by 13 young people at a tiny store in the Yuanmingyuan neighborhood surrounded by Beijing's most well-known universities, One Way Street Library was created as a space for students and professors to gather and discuss intellectual topics. In March 2006, One Way Street held its first formal salon.

One Way Street has since grown into a stylish yet comfortable 2-story space in Beijing's Solana Lifestyle Shopping Park. The store's motto, "We Read the World," is incorporated throughout its décor.

The salons are now famous in Beijing among the Chinese literary crowd, who continue to pack into the store's second-floor café for various events and discussions. On Douban, a Chinese arts discussion site, One Way Street commands almost 80,000 fans. All events are free of charge, appealing to the very university students that One Way Street targeted from day one.

Each event is aimed at stimulating conversation about topics relevant to today's world, and they are often led by well-known authors and artists, including folk singer Zhou Yunpeng, art critic Chen Danqing, writer Yu Hua, and film director Jia Zhangke. "We don't think everything our visitors acquire from us is infallible truth," store manager and salon organizer Wu Yanping is quick to note. "Everyone with a different opinion is welcomed to share and discuss their views with others here."

Between events, One Way Street is a quiet haven for readers. The first floor functions as a library-bookshop, with its English language section available for browsing only. The quality and range of books are of particular concern to One Way Street's management team. A special group is dedicated to selecting books, which are brought in once or twice per week. According to Wu, One Way Street is not interested in supplying books he describes as "poor quality," including popular but poorly-written romantic dramas or non-scientific lifestyle books. They are also careful to filter out books created from plagiarized material.

"The process relies mostly on intuition," he says about the book selection process. "But it is also clear to us what books could never be sold here."

One Way Street is also venturing into the publishing world, cooperating with a publishing house to print selected books. So far, One Way Street has facilitated the publishing of 10 books, including three by Xu Zhiyuan, one of the founders of the bookstore. Of the other authors, Wu admits a trend. "We focus mainly on authors who work in media."

A reader's digest, published every two months, is another new publishing project at One Way Street. So far, three issues have been distributed, with each focusing on a specific topic, such as drama.

The second floor café is full of cozy white couches and chairs where people can come to read and use the store's free WiFi. On a weekday afternoon, the café is both busy, but quiet, most visitors engaged in quiet conversation, involved in their laptop computer, or lost in a book. During fair weather, an outside seating area is available with vistas of Chaoyang Park's lake and the surrounding urban landscape.

Now that One Way Street has settled into its roomier location in Solana, Wu says there's no future plans for physical expansion, but they want to work on providing good services to Beijing's literary scene. "We don't want this bookstore to expand in size, but we hope it can survive for few decades," he says.

With One Way Street's current, crucial role in Beijing's literary and intellectual scene, survival isn't much of a question. Meanwhile, its small scale maintains a personal atmosphere that feels like a sanctuary for literary fans to both read and learn.