A preservation framework for Chinese ancient books
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/00220411011023652 |
| Pages | 259-278 |
| Date | 09 March 2010 |
| Published date | 09 March 2010 |
| Author | Mingjie Li,Jinfang Niu |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Library & information science |
A preservation framework for
Chinese ancient books
Mingjie Li
School of Information Management, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China, and
Jinfang Niu
School of Information Sciences, University of Tennessee at Knoxville,
Knoxville, Tennessee, USA
Abstract
Purpose – This paper aims to provide a theoretical guide for preserving ancient books in China.
Design/methodology/approach – The paper reviews the history of the damage and preservation
of ancient books in China, and analyzes the value attributes of ancient books: archaeological value,
historical value and artistic value.
Findings – The paper proposes a preservation framework for Chinese ancient books. This
framework is composed of three layers. The foundation layer is to preserve the physical entity of
ancient books so that the archaeological values are preserved. The middle layer is to preserve the
intellectual content of ancient books so that the values for historical research are preserved. The top
layer is mainly about preserving the productions process of the artistic format of ancient books, so that
not only the static artistic formats are preserved, the techniques and procedures to produce the artistic
format are preserved as well.
Originality/value – The paper presents a framework that connects the value attributes of ancient
books and the strategies to preserve those values, systematizes them and presents them as a whole.
The framework can be used to justify government policies and help identify pitfalls in the preservation
strategies for ancient books.
Keywords Books, China, Historical research, Collections management
Paper type Conceptual paper
1. Introduction
According to The Standard for the Restoration and Control of Anc ient Books by China
Ministry of Culture (2006), Chinese ancient books are defined as “books written or printed
before 1912, with classical binding and layout forms” such as bamboo slips, silk
manuscripts, paper transcripts and rubbings, woodblock print books, movable
wooden-type books, stone lithograph books and so on. In China, the term “rare books”
usually refers to ancient books with high quality of collating, old block-printed editions or
hand-written manuscripts by famous people. It is a subjective concept, varying from
person to person during different historical periods. In the Song Dynasty (960-1279),
people identified rare books mainly based on the quality of the intellectual content. In the
Ming Dynasty (1368-1661), people identified rare books mainly based on printing styles
and formats. In the Tsing Dynasty (1636-1911), people decided rare books based on both
content and style. In the early 1980s when compiling the Chinese Rare Books Bibliography,
some scholars proposed another criterion for rare book identification: rare books need to
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
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This study is funded by the National Social Science Foundation Project of P.R.China (Item
No. 08CTQ005).
A preservation
framework for
Chinese books
259
Received 4 December 2008
Revised 1 June 2009
Accepted 22 July 2009
Journal of Documentation
Vol. 66 No. 2, 2010
pp. 259-278
qEmerald Group Publishing Limited
0022-0418
DOI 10.1108/00220411011023652
have high archeological, academic and artistic value (Cao, 2007, p. 543). This is still a
subjective criterion and it requires high-level expertise to judge values. Many curators of
ancient books are not qualified experts to judge the values of ancient books. Therefore in
practice, a simple criterion for identifying rare ancient books is books written or printed
before 1795 (the 60th year of the Qianlong Emperor’ reign in the Tsing Dynasty).
However, as the history moves along, the value of some ancient books grows. Zhao (2004)
suggested re-defining the cutting point for “ancient books” and “rare books”. He
suggested to include documents with high values produced during the late Tsing
Dynasty (1795-1911) and the Republic of China period (1912-1945) in the category of rare
books. Owing to the subjective nature and the moving cutting point, people sometimes
debate whether certain books belong to the category of “rare ancient books”.
According to incomplete statistics, currently 27.175 million volumes of ancient
books are preserved in various libraries in China. If the collections in museums and
temples are included, the total number of ancient books is over 30 million volume s
(Zhang, 2007, p. 29). Among them, more than 2.5 million volumes of ancient books can
be identified as rare books (created before 1795). Many other ancient books are
scattered among individuals in China and abroad. Chinese ancient books are the
historical records and important carriers of Chinese cultural heritage. They deserve to
be well preserved. In this paper, we will review the preservation history of Chinese
ancient books. Then based on the analysis of the value attributes of ancient books, we
will propose a preservation framework for Chinese ancient books.
2. A review of the damage to, and preservation of, ancient books in China
Over history, books in China have been seriously damaged many times by political
conflicts, wars, revolutions and commotions. According to Du (2001, pp. 79-83), there
were 15 very serious disasters happened to royal or governmental books (as shown in
Table I) before 1911.
During the first half of the twentieth century, Chinese ancient books were looted and
destroyed primarily by the Japanese. For instance, in 1907, all the holdings of the
Bisong Library, one of the four most famous libraries in China at that time, were taken
away by the Japanese. Now the books are in the Jing-Jia Library in Tokyo, Japan.
During the Second World War, the Japanese took away even more Chinese ancient
books and documents, including 2,742,108 volumes of books in 23,675 titles, 15,166
units of paintings and calligraphies, 28,891 units of antiques, 9,378 pieces of inscription
rubbings and 56,128 maps (Yan, 2007, p. 2115). During the second half of the twentieth
century, the most serious damage to ancient books happened during the Cultural
Revolution (1966-1976). In the Smash Four Olds Movement[1], coun tless ancient books
were damaged and eliminated (He, 2006, pp. 44-7).
However, except for the damages caused by the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976),
China (since 1949) has made great achievements in preserving ancient books. These
achievements were made possible by the policy of, and financial support from, the
government. Here we will review the achievements in the following aspects:
restoration, bibliographic control, re-publication, microfilming and digitization.
2.1 Restoration
Shortly after the new People’s Republic of China was established, the Chinese
government started to gather ancient books scattered among individuals and to restore
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