"Qixi arrives, the sun is high, and it is good to dry books and clothes." This folk saying has been circulating in the mainland for a long time. In order to prevent mold and insects in classic books, China has had the practice of posting books and exposing books since ancient times. Every year in the sixth and seventh months of the lunar calendar, the land of China from south to north successively carries out book worship, book tasting, book sacrifice and chanting activities, this activity from the preservation and protection of books is closely combined with the elegant interest and cultural development of Yaji, forming a unique tradition of book publishing.
On August 22 (the seventh day of the seventh lunar month), the launching ceremony of the 2023 Chinese traditional book publishing activity was held in Yangzhou, Jiangsu Province. At the same time, special book publishing activities in Inner Mongolia, Hubei, Anhui, Sichuan, Hainan and other places have been carried out one after another. The event was guided by the Department of Public Service of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, hosted by the National Library (National Center for the Protection of Ancient Books), and implemented by provincial ancient book protection centers and ancient book preservation institutions.
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Publishing books is both protection and sharing
"Ancient books are the root and soul of Chinese culture, which contain the wisdom, spirit and culture of the Chinese nation. However, due to factors such as classical Chinese, vertical typesetting, and traditional characters, it is difficult to mine and utilize the content of ancient books. Zhang Zhiqing, executive deputy director of the National Library and deputy director of the National Center for the Protection of Ancient Books, said that the purpose of protecting ancient books is to make good use of ancient books, and how to effectively make the words in ancient books "live", excavate the ideas and culture contained in them, and carry out creative transformation and innovative development has always been a topic that ancient book storage units have focused on. In 2019, the traditional Chinese book posting activity came into being.
The tradition of publishing books is well documented in ancient texts. Cui Yin's "Four Peoples Moon Order" of the Eastern Han Dynasty recorded: "On the seventh day of July, the scriptures and clothes were exposed, and the beetles were not beetles. Northern Wei Jia Sixun's agricultural monograph "Qi Min Zhishu" also described the scene of publishing books. There is also an allusion to "Hao Long only posts books in the belly" in "The World Speaks New Words": "Hao Long was lying on his back in the middle of July 7, and when people asked him why, he replied: 'I publish books. During the Northern Song Dynasty, book drying became a popular and elegant thing at that time, and the palace would hold a book exposure party in the sixth and seventh months of the lunar calendar to take out precious calligraphy and paintings, books, etc., so that Shi Dafu could feast his eyes. There are relevant records in the "History of Song". During the Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties, literati and bibliophiles also appreciated, worshiped, sacrificed, and passed on books around Qixi Festival, and the tradition of publishing books was recorded.
"In ancient times, when drying books, it was generally placed in a cool and ventilated place to dry, and some more elegant places also used bamboo skewers to spread the books page by page, which shows that the mainland people cherish books." Zhang Zhiqing said, "In contemporary times, 'sunbathing' means 'sharing'. The traditional Chinese book posting activity combines the ancient people's book posting tradition with the contemporary meaning of 'drying', expands the connotation and extension of traditional book publishing, and gives it more functions to share, display and promote ancient books, and expose national treasures, classics, techniques, traditions and new cultural appearances. It should gradually develop into a festival that protects classics and inherits civilization. ”
Since the launch of the National Library (National Center for the Protection of Ancient Books) in 2019, the Chinese traditional book publishing activity has been held for five consecutive sessions, and hundreds of units in more than 30 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities have posted nearly 1,000 kinds of precious ancient books, forming a rich atmosphere of online and offline linkage and echoing from east to west, south and north. The main venue of the book posting event ranges from Qufu, Shandong to Hangzhou, Zhejiang, and then to Yangzhou, Jiangsu this year, with changing themes, more diverse forms, and prominent local characteristics.
Among them, the "Drying National Treasures" activity was widely loved and praised by the audience and netizens. "Every precious book probably has a tortuous experience." Many library directors across the country sighed when they were showing the treasures of the town hall. The National Library has the Ming Jiajing manuscript "Yongle Dian", the Shandong Provincial Library has collected the Song carved book "Ten Thousand Scrolls of Jinghua", the Chongqing Municipal Library has collected the Southern Song carved book "Minggong Supplement Revision Annotated Sui Book Detailed Section", and the Hunan Provincial Library has collected the Song Carved Yuan revised version "Say Wen Xie Zi"... While introducing the content and value of these ancient books in simple terms, the curators also told the history of their ups and downs through the accumulation of vermilion seals in the classics, as well as the stories of ancient and modern bibliophiles and scholars who painstakingly preserved the classics.
▲ Hainan Provincial Library book posting activity site Photo courtesy of Hainan Provincial Library
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The "Rivers" themed classic shows the Chinese context
With the theme of "Thousands of Rivers and Thousands of Years of Culture," this year's traditional Chinese book posting activity linked the activities of cities along the Yangtze River, the Yellow River, and the Grand Canal, and strengthened exchanges and cooperation among localities. The relevant person in charge of the Public Service Department of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism said that this book posting activity is a cultural and tourism system to implement the spirit of General Secretary Xi Jinping's important exposition on inheriting and developing China's excellent traditional culture, especially the spirit of an important speech at the symposium on cultural inheritance and development, and is also a specific action to actively respond to the major decisions and deployments of the Party Central Committee and the State Council on protecting, inheriting and carrying forward the culture of the Yangtze River, Yellow River and Grand Canal, which is of great significance.
Taking the Grand Canal as an example, Zhang Zhiqing said: "The Grand Canal not only carries the transportation from the south to the north, but also promotes the economic and trade and cultural exchanges between the north and the south, as well as the dissemination of literature and art such as poetry, novels, opera, and painting." "This year, Beijing, Hebei, Shandong, Zhejiang and other provinces and cities along the Grand Canal have combined online and offline activities in the form of "document exhibition + special lecture + exhibition experience", sharing ancient book knowledge, displaying ancient book production and restoration skills, and showing the culture and nostalgia of the Grand Canal, as well as the new appearance of the canal, such as the new cultural landscape and facilities along the canal.
In order to let more people know about Yangzhou's canal culture, especially Yangzhou's profound book collection and engraving culture, the "Yangzhou Canal Culture in Ancient Books" market released a "cloud" market video in addition to offline activities. Rui Mingyang, Shen Shuhua and Li Jiangmin, inheritors of Jiangsu Province, respectively demonstrated the three key steps of patterning, engraving and printing in the woodblock printing process. Wei Minghua, a scholar of local culture in Yangzhou, and Shan Dianyuan, a professor at Yangzhou University, vividly displayed the story and value of the "Yangzhou Picture Record", which was written by Li Douhua in the Qing Dynasty in 30 years and is known as the "best encyclopedia of Yangzhou", and the "Quan Tang Poems" organized and engraved in Yangzhou by Cao Xueqin's grandfather Cao Yin.
The "Water Conservancy Map of Canal Sources in Nine Provinces" published by the National Library this time has also attracted the attention of many visitors. The map includes not only the flow of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, but also the grain collection and production areas of Hunan and Hubei, so it starts from Dongting Lake and continues to Beijing. This map can't help but sigh that ancient waterways, modern railways and highways converge on the land of China and jointly build the economic and transportation lifeline of the mainland.
Provinces and municipalities through which the Yellow River and the Yangtze River flow have also carried out a wealth of themed book publishing activities, such as Inner Mongolia's online ancient book exhibition "The Second Handshake between the Yellow River and the Great Wall", and Henan Province will also hold an exhibition of ancient books on the Sui-Tang Grand Canal in Luoyang.
It is worth mentioning that among the many theme exhibitions of the 5 book-posting activities, the genealogy culture exhibition is unique and has reached a large scale. Hubei Provincial Library and Shanghai Library co-hosted, and at the same time linked with Hunan Library, Shandong Provincial Library, Nanjing Library, etc., to launch the first Chinese Genealogy Festival and the 14th Hubei Genealogy Festival, through genealogy exhibitions, special lectures, genealogy activities, academic seminars, genealogy database display, etc., to show the long history of Chinese genealogy culture. Sichuan Provincial Library also held the "Baoshu Family Tree Culture Exhibition" for the first time, and Hainan Provincial Library launched the "Tracing the Origin - Collection Genealogy Engraving and Printing Activity". Zhang Zhiqing said that the stock of genealogy, the age of engraving, and the surname of each region are closely related to the history, population, culture, etc. of the place, and genealogy research has both academic value and interest.
▲ Woodblock printing experience activity held in Anhui Shou County Library Photo courtesy of Anhui Provincial Library
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With the joint efforts of many parties, the activation and utilization of ancient books have yielded fruitful results
In 2022, the Opinions of the Central Office and the State Council on Promoting the Work of Ancient Books in the New Era proposed to "accelerate the transformation and utilization of ancient book resources". "As an important carrier of the inheritance of Chinese civilization, the activation and utilization of ancient books, promotion and dissemination have always been the focus of the work of all ancient book storage units." Zhang Zhiqing said, "Since the implementation of the 'Chinese Ancient Books Protection Plan' in 2007, there have been more activities related to ancient books, more movement between depository units, and more awareness of the importance of publicity and promotion, and comprehensive cooperation with the media." At the same time, local depository units have changed from initially cooperating with the National Library (National Center for the Protection of Ancient Books) to now actively and consciously carrying out activities, and the scale is large, the form is lively and the results are remarkable. ”
In recent years, through multi-channel and multi-way continuous promotion, the mainland has achieved fruitful results in promoting the effective use of ancient books and promoting the digitization of ancient books, and a large number of seemingly "profound" ancient books have entered the lives of ordinary people through digital products, audio and video and other media, and have been widely popular.
Up to now, a total of 130,000 ancient books and special collection documents and image resources have been released nationwide, of which the "Chinese Ancient Books Resource Library" built by the National Library (National Center for the Protection of Ancient Books) has released more than 102,000 ancient book image resources, and has released 28,000 ancient book resources in cooperation with 39 units. This has provided great convenience for scholars and the public to study and use ancient book resources.
Libraries, museums and related scientific research institutions and science and technology enterprises around the world have also actively explored the application of modern intelligent technology to promote the intelligent construction, management and service of ancient book resources, and achieved many innovative results. In February this year, the high-definition image database of the "Yongle Dian" and the "National List of Precious Ancient Books" research and development by the National Library and the Digital Humanities Research Center of Peking University and other units were released online at the National Library, and the public can log in from the official website of the National Library for free. These two projects are an important practice to activate ancient book resources, through the concept and technology of digital humanities, the broad geographical distribution and complex character relationships of the National List of Precious Ancient Books are formed into a systematic knowledge map, and the cultural relics, artistic value and circulation process of the Yongle Canon are vividly displayed, providing an important way for the public to explore and understand ancient books.
Not only that, Tianyige Museum, Shanghai History Museum, etc. use intelligent sensing and other technologies to realize real-time collection, dynamic monitoring and intelligent analysis of environmental data for the preservation of ancient books; The Digital Humanities Research Center of Peking University has developed the "I and Dian" automatic sorting system for ancient books, which can complete the automatic sentence reading and punctuation of about 50,000 words of ancient book text in 10 seconds. By vigorously promoting scientific and technological innovation and the application of new technologies, the National Library has achieved phased results in batch deacidification of literature, repair equipment for damaged pages, etc...
In terms of the popularization of ancient books, all localities pay attention to combining the protection of ancient books with the protection of cultural relics and intangible cultural heritage, such as carrying out the "ancient book restoration skills into schools" activity; Innovate traditional culture promotion methods to enhance the attractiveness and dissemination of classic culture, such as CCTV's special program "China in the Classics" to vividly interpret ancient books; Social forces and scientific and technological forces have also contributed to the protection and activation of ancient books, such as the documentary "Ancient Books Through Time and Space" and the "New Life of Ancient Books" live broadcast event jointly created by the National Library, the China Foundation for Cultural Heritage Protection and ByteDance, which has been widely acclaimed.
The relevant person in charge of the National Library (National Museum of Classics) said that it is necessary to continue to give full play to the advantages of the museum in the main position of the ancient book activation and serving the public, so that the ancient book can go out of the warehouse and get closer to the audience.