A library has created a storm of controversy online for allowing beggars to use their facilities, the Zhejiang based Youth Times reported.

Netizens flooded micro blogs with comments after discovering Hangzhou library in the capital of Zhejiang province has granted permission to beggars to read books.

The curator Chu Shuqing posted: "I have no right to stop anyone coming to read in this public library, including beggars; but you do have the right to leave away if you don’t like being in the same room with others."

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Chu posted the words on Sina.com and within one hour the post was forwarded more than 5,000 times attracting 1,200 comments, most praising the library’s fairness policy.

The curator Chu, who declined to get interviewed, reformed Hangzhou Library into a complete free and open library to the public in 2003. Since then, the library has welcomed people from all backgrounds, including migrant workers, and beggars who go there to read or take a leisure rest.

Whilst the open library policy is rare in China, some people felt uncomfortable reading books in the same space as beggars. "I feel really bad when they sit beside me", one reader wrote in the library comment book.

Liu Lidong, director of Hangzhou Library, said to a reporter that the library’s policy is to let every citizen enjoy the equal rights of reading and learning no matter what social class one belongs to.

"As long as the beggars or migrant workers wear decent, at least not naked or overly-exposed clothes and behave properly, we are more than welcome to let them in to learn more", said Liu.

Former Argentine writer, National Public curator Jorge Luis Borges said: "I have always imagined that Paradise will be like a kind of library. Everyone has the right to choose to stay in a library, to find their own paradise".

Hangzhou library is now striving to move forward setting up its new venue with a total area of 43,000 square kilometers at present. "90% of the new site building will put to use for public", Liu added.