Qilu Network Lightning News, May 10, a small area of the operating table, a few tools to take advantage of, coupled with the degree of damage to the ancient books, decomposition, repair, folding leaves, ordering... These are the daily work of the ancient book restorers in the Shandong Provincial Library. For them, filling up time is not only the immersion of restoring ancient books, but also the accumulation of this page.
Hou Yanyan has been engaged in the restoration of ancient books for 13 years since 2009, during which time there are about dozens of ancient books that she has restored. Hou Yanyan told the Lightning News reporter that for every ancient book restorer, every book he gets is like meeting a friend of his own. "Some people call our profession 'ancient doctors,' a bit like the way doctors feel about their patients."
The restoration of ancient books belongs to the traditional Chinese handicrafts, which have developed along the way with ancient books, providing the necessary technical support for the inheritance of culture and the spread of civilization. Thanks to the inheritance of ancient book restoration techniques, many classics and calligraphy and paintings of literati and inkers have been preserved. In 2016, the restoration techniques of ancient books were included in the fourth batch of provincial intangible cultural heritage representative projects in Shandong Province.
According to Hou Yanyan, the ancient book restoration technique has also undergone a series of technological innovations. Because to turn the traditional and empirical restoration into the current scientific restoration, so before the restoration work officially begins, the ancient book conservators often need to do a personalized restoration plan for the ancient books, complete some corresponding scientific tests, and then complete the paper and dyeing paper work for the materials of the ancient books, and finally carry out technical repairs according to the existing restoration principles.
In Hou Yanyan's impression, the most difficult to repair is the "Pei Wen Zhai Calligraphy and Painting Notation". This set of books from the Republic of China period consisted of five volumes, and it took four or five years to complete the restoration. "The physical strength of the paper itself is already very bad, and once it is wet, it becomes what we call 'pulp'." Hou Yanyan introduced that the ordinary "wet unveiling" and the method of "steaming and unveiling" in the pot are not applicable to it, and can only be repaired by "dry unveiling".
"You can only take the needle with the small screwdriver and uncover it little by little." Because there is no place to start, this process is actually very torturous. "Hou Yanyan has to observe the condition of the book every once in a while to see if the paper is slightly dry and if it can continue to be repaired." Because every time you open a little bit, there will be a little air in the paper. When you come into contact with the air, the paper will dry slightly, and after drying, it will be relatively easy to uncover. In this way, a 50-page "PeiWenzhai Calligraphy and Painting Notation", Hou Yanyan took a year to complete the restoration work.
Hou Yanyan told reporters that the premise of in-depth excavation and collation of excellent traditional culture in ancient books requires that the ancient books themselves be in a "healthy" state of preservation. However, once the ancient books are damaged, this state has actually been continuing, and these ancient books must be rescued and protected through the restoration of monuments. "Sometimes we fix books full of holes, and the paper on them is bitten like a sieve by bugs. You practice for a day, and at night you go back and close your eyes, and there are holes all in front of you. ”
At present, shandong provincial library has a total of eight ancient book conservators, with a collection of more than 750,000 kinds of ancient books, of which 300,000 need to be restored to varying degrees. As an ancient book restorer, Hou Yanyan said that she will continue to insist, "there must be someone to adhere to this work, and pass on this traditional skill, this is the responsibility of our generation of ancient book restorers." ”
Lightning News reporter Cui Dongmei Liu Shaojun photographed Zhang Xin reporting