Statement | Shizuko
Recently, the "Annotations on the Collection of Liang Peilan" published by the Zhonghua Book Company was criticized as "never seen such a brazen book" attracted attention. Critical essays use examples to detail the hard wounds in the book, such as typos, missing words, and sentence breaks. Zhonghua Book Company then issued a "Letter to Readers", acknowledging that "this article is objective and fair, and the problems reflected are true" and promising to take measures to deal with it.
On December 30, 2021, Zhonghua Book Company published a letter to readers on the Annotations to Liang Peilan's Collection.
The Renjiao version of the Chinese textbook mistakenly wrote "bath" as "shu bath", and the New Year gift box "Five Blessings and Welcoming Spring" launched by the People's Literature Publishing House mistakenly included the word "disaster"... As the "gatekeeper" of book quality, the publishing house should have adhered to the attitude of excellence and adhered to the bottom line of serious responsibility. Frequent low-level mistakes not only cloud valuable knowledge, but also discourage thousands of readers. Specific to the Zhonghua Bookstore, which enjoys a century-old glory, it is necessary to ask, how did many glaring and hard injuries ascend to the hall of elegance?
Sorting out ancient books is not an easy task. Taking the controversial "Annotations on liang Peilan's collection" as an example, this series of books alone contains more than 1900 poems. Extensive books, background examinations, detailed annotations, and fine review, each work needs to be carefully polished and carefully considered. For the collators of ancient books, a deep academic foundation is indispensable, and long-term perseverance is also indispensable. But the difficulty and time-consuming are not the reasons for the decline in book quality. Since the author of the book intends to undertake the heavy responsibility of sorting out ancient books, he should show the rigorous demeanor of a scholar.
Annotations to the Liang Peilan Collection, published by zhonghua bookstore. Figure Dangdang Book Network
If the collators of ancient books are the "source" of the achievement of fine books, then the many editors of the publishing house are undoubtedly the key "stream". In the book publishing industry, three reviews and three proofreadings are the basic workflow. The frequent errors in ancient texts indicate that editors have not fully fulfilled their responsibility for review and proofreading. It should be admitted that it is not realistic to avoid book errors 100% due to many factors such as the publication cycle. However, it is difficult to obtain public understanding by taking a glimpse of the conclusive examples given in critical articles, such as the forcible translation of "stone bell" (place name) in poetry as "stone stalactite".
For today's people, there are natural obstacles to the search for ancient books, and if the books they read are still "problem books", obviously, "it is better to believe in books than to have no books". Reducing or even avoiding errors in book publishing is the solution. From this point of view, book authors should bear in mind the admonition that "articles are known throughout the ages, gains and losses are known", and write big articles on knowledge dissemination with heart and soul and hard work; "education is fundamental, it is a textbook", for many publishing houses, including zhonghua bookstores, it is equally important to do a good job as a "gatekeeper" of knowledge products.
【Author】 Sun Wenjing
Southern Review