National Library of China

The collections of the National Library have inherited the royal collections since the Southern Song Dynasty and private collections since the Ming and Qing dynasties. The oldest collections can be traced back to the oracle bones of Yin Ruins more than 3,000 years ago.

The National Library is a major research and public library, with items in 123 languages and in many formats, both print and digital: books, manuscripts, journals, newspapers, magazines, sound and music recordings, videos, play-scripts, patents, databases, maps, stamps, prints, drawings. As of December 2020, the collection contains more than 41 million volumes and is growing at a rate of one million volumes per year. The total amount of digital resources exceeds 1000 TB and is growing at a rate of 100 TB per year.

The National Library of China was initially founded as the Imperial Peking Library by the Qing government in 1909. After several name changes and administrative alternation, it was renamed the National Library of China in 1999. The National Library now consists of the South Complex, the North Complex, the Ancient Books Hall, the Children's Hall, and seventeen dispatched research libraries to the central government's various departments and to the Academy of Military Sciences.

History

Background

The earliest Chinese references to Western-style public libraries were by Lin Zexu in the Sizhou Zhi (四洲志; 1839) and Wei Yuan in the Illustrated Treatise on the Maritime Kingdoms (first ed., 1843), both of which were translations from Western books.

In the late nineteenth century, in response to several military defeats against western powers, the government of the Qing dynasty (1644–1912) sent several missions abroad to study western culture and institutions. Several members of the first Chinese diplomatic mission, which sailed to the United States, England, France, and other countries from 1111 to 1870, recorded their views of western libraries, noting that they attracted a large number of readers. Journalist Liang Qichao (1873–1929), who became a prominent exiled intellectual after the failure of the Hundred Days' Reform in 1898, wrote about the Boston Public Library and the University of Chicago Library, praising their openness to the public and the virtue of readers who did not steal the books that had been lent to them. Dai Hongci (戴鸿慈; 戴鴻慈), a member of another Qing mission sent abroad to study modern constitutions, noted the efficacy of book borrowing at the Library of Congress.

Foundation

In 1906, the governor of Hunan province Pang Hongshu memorialized to the throne to announce he had completed preparations for the creation of a provincial library in Changsha. In 1908 and 1909, high officials from the provinces of Fengtian, Shandong, Shanxi, Zhejiang and Yunnan petitioned the Imperial Court asking for permission to establish public libraries in their respective jurisdictions. In response, on 2 May 1909, the Qing Ministry of Education (学部; 學部; Xuébù) announced plans to open libraries in every province of the country.

On 9 September 1909, Zhang Zhidong, a long-time leader of the Self-Strengthening movement who had been viceroy of Huguang and was now serving on the powerful Grand Council, memorialized to request the foundation of a library in China's capital. Foundation of the library was approved by imperial edict that same day. The institution was originally called the Imperial Library of Peking or Metropolitan Library (京师图书馆; 京師圖書館; Jīngshī Túshūguǎn). Lu Xun and other famous scholars have made great efforts for its construction.

Philologist and bibliographer Miao Quansun (缪荃荪; 繆荃蓀; 1844–1919), who had overseen the founding of Jiangnan Library in Nanjing two years earlier, was called in to administer the new establishment. As in Jiangnan, his assistant Chen Qingnian took charge of most of the management.

A private proposal made by Luo Zhenyu in the early 1900s stated that the library should be located in a place protected from both fire and floods, and at some distance from noisy markets. Following these recommendations, the Ministry of Education first chose the Deshengmen neighborhood inside the northern Beijing city wall, a quiet area with lakes. But this plan would have required purchasing several buildings. For lack of funds, Guanghua Temple (广化寺; 廣化寺) was chosen as the library's first site. Guanghua Temple was a complex of Buddhist halls and shrines located near the northern bank of the Shichahai, but inconveniently located for readers, and too damp for long-term book storage. The Imperial Library of Peking would remain there until 1917. In 1916, the Ministry of education ordered the library, every published book should be registered in ministry of interior and all collected by library, The function of national library begins to manifest.

Later history

The National Peking Library opened to the public on 27 August 1912, a few months after the abdication of Puyi (r. 1908–1912), the last emperor of the Qing dynasty. From then on, it was managed by the Ministry of Education of the Republic of China. The day before the library's opening, its new chief librarian Jiang Han (江瀚: 1853–1935) argued that the National Peking Library was a research library and recommended the opening of a new library with magazines and new publications that could attract a more popular readership. In June 1913, such a Branch Library was opened outside Xuanwumen Gate, and more than 2,000 books were transferred there from the main library. On 29 October 1913, because Guanghua Temple proved too small and inaccessible, the main library itself was closed, pending the choice of a new site.

The Library charged one copper coin as a reading fee, whereas the Tianjin Library charged twice as much and the Shandong public library charged three coins. At first, readers could not borrow books, but sometime before 1918 borrowing became allowed.

In 1916, the Ministry of Education (MOE) of the Republic of China ordered that a copy of every Chinese publication should be deposited at the Metropolitan Library after being registered with the Copyright Bureau.

After the Northern Expedition of Kuomintang in 1928, the name of Beijing was changed to Beiping (Peiping) to emphasize that the capital had moved to Nanjing (jīng lit. translating to capital). The National Peking Library therefore changed its name to the National Peiping Library and became the co-national library with the National Central Library in Nanjing. In 1931, the new library house in Wenjin Street near the Beihai Park opened. After the People's Republic of China was officially established in October 1949 and Beijing once again became the capital, the National Peiping Library was renamed National Peking Library. In 1951, the Ministry of Culture declared that its official English name would now be Peking Library.

The library established a materials exchange program with the C.V. Starr East Asian Library of Columbia University in 1963, through which it was able to acquire materials from the West; one such transaction during the first months of the program involved the exchange of the complete works of James Baldwin for "valuable legal publications" from China. This relationship lasted until the early 2000s, when the Columbia University Libraries discontinued its exchange department.

In 1978, two years after the end of the Cultural Revolution, the library started publishing the Bulletin of the Beijing Library (Beitu Tongxun 北图通讯), which quickly became one of China's most important library publications. In 1979, under an Implementing Accord regulating cultural exchanges between the U.S. and China, it vowed to exchange library material with the Library of Congress. To compensate for a lack of professionally trained librarians, starting in 1982 librarians from the NLC and other academic libraries spent periods of six months at the Library of Congress and the Yale University Library. To develop library science, the NLC established links with the Australian National University.

In October 1987, the Library moved to a modern building located north of Purple Bamboo Park in Haidian District. In 1999, it was officially renamed the National Library of China.

In November 2001, with the approval of the State Council, the second phase of the National Library project and the National Digital Library project were officially launched. As an important component of the national information infrastructure, the project was included in the 10th Five-Year Plan. The total national investment amounted to $1.23 billion, allocated for physical expansion, the creation of digital collections, IT infrastructure, and online services.

On 28 October 2003, the National Library ALEPH500 computer integrated management system has been put into operation, which laid the foundation for the National Library to enter the ranks of the world's advanced libraries.