Programs for Preservation of the National Book Heritage in the Library Policy of the People’s Republic of China

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to summarize the information on the state of collections of ancient and rare books in the library institutions of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) by the beginning of the 21st century, to consider the content and the course of implementation of the state programs of the PRC in the field of registration, cataloguing, conservation, restoration, preservation and promotion of the national book heritage monuments. The author presents definitions of the terms “Ancient books” and “Rare books” used in China. All manuscript books and printed publications created before 1912 are considered Ancient books. Rare books include all books dated back to the period before 1795 and editions published in 1796—1912 that have outstanding historical, cultural, art and aesthetic value, as well as publishing products and documents from the period of the Republic of China (1912—1949). Chinese publications often use the term “Rare ancient books”, which refers to all manuscript books and printed publications before 1795. There are about 27 million 175 thousand copies of ancient books in the country’s libraries, including 2,5 million books created before 1795; and about 45 thousand ancient books have been preserved in a single copy.The article focuses on the programs developed with the participation of the National Library of China (NLC) and approved by the PRC Government in 2007—2018. The author reveals the main provisions of the “National Plan for Preservation of Ancient Books” (2007), as well as the powers and tasks of the National Centre for Conservation and Preservation of Ancient Chinese Books (NC), which has become the lead agency responsible for the implementation of the Plan. The paper considers the system of regional and local centres for the conservation and restoration of ancient and rare books, headed by the NC, that has developed in the PRC at present, shows the role of these centres in the field of identification, registration and cataloguing of book heritage monuments, in the creation and maintenance of a normative storage regime in old library buildings, ensuring the activities of restoration workshops, digitization of documents, preparation and online publication of full-text databases of ancient and rare books. The article emphasizes the importance of the National Museum of Classical Books, opened in July 2014 at the NLC, for promoting the national book heritage.The author notes that the priority task for the coming years is the construction of three new buildings of the National Book Depository in Beijing and Chéngdé (Hebei Province). The article concludes that over the past ten years, owing to the government support and targeted funding, China has managed to organize systematic activities in the field of conservation, preservation and promotion of the national book heritage.