They didn't expect that the short video "Who Built a Bicycle in the Ming Dynasty" became the work with the highest number of views and likes among the more than 800 works on the Douyin account of the Shaanxi Provincial Library with more than 2.5 million views, and the number of likes on a single work exceeded the total number of fans of the account. The work participated in the "Ancient Books Content Creative Season" initiated by ByteDance Public Welfare and the National Library (National Center for the Protection of Ancient Books), and won the biggest award - "New Sayings of Ancient Books" award.
Pictures of the award ceremony
In the face of the "circle-breaking" dissemination of works, Dou Peng, director of the Historical Documentation Department of Shaanxi, said, "Short videos have opened up a new world for the display and dissemination of our ancient book content. The success of the short video of 'Bicycle' will become a new starting point for the revitalization of our ancient books. In the future, we may try to do a series of short video promotion plans for ancient books with local characteristics such as "Moraine Sand Collection", "Ancient and Modern Book Collection", the treasure of the town museum, and the ancient scientists of Shaanxi, Shaanxi champions, Shaanxi village sages, and Shaanxi local chronicles. ”
Forgotten Ancient Books –
Most of the readers of the 330,000 rare ancient books are researchers
Wenshan Zihai not only has a reading threshold, but also increases the reading cost of readers
Founded in 1909, Shaanxi Provincial Library is the earliest public library established in the western part of the mainland, and has been awarded the title of "National First-Class Library" by the former Ministry of Culture of the People's Republic of China for many times. Among the total collection of more than 6 million volumes, nearly 330,000 ancient books are included, including the Song and Yuan Dynasty engraved books "Moraine Sand Collection", the Ming edition of "Xiangyang County Chronicles", "Yugong Details", "Haigang Peak Collection", "Chu Ci Collection Notes" and many other rare books in China, and even the only book in the country, which is the first batch of national key protection units of ancient books.
The Department of Historical Documents is located on the 4th floor of the museum area of Tuchang'an Road, Shaanxi Province, among which there are 6 listings at the entrance of the reading room of ancient books and modern literature, including "National Key Protection Unit of Ancient Books" and "National Ancient Book Restoration Skills Xi Center Shaanxi Transmission and Xi Institute". In contrast to the many "halos" and the blessing of a large number of ancient book collections, there are not many readers in the reading area with bright and clean windows.
"In terms of reader traffic, it's generally not much. Li Hang, a staff member of the Shaanxi Historical Documentation Department, recounted. Li Hang has worked in the Shaanxi Provincial Library for 10 years, and transferred to the Department of Historical Documents in 2019. In addition to the daily work of cataloguing and restoring ancient books, the staff of the Department of Historical Documents will also cooperate with readers to inquire about materials.
In Li Hang's eyes, the readership of ancient books is relatively fixed, mostly scholars, students, history and culture lovers, or a small number of readers who inquire about the deeds of family ancestors. Because there is a threshold for ancient books, whether it is the way of reading, or the expression of traditional Chinese characters in the text, the content of the text, etc., ordinary readers will have certain difficulties when reading. For example, the annotated Analects are now readily available to readers, the product of modern scholars' efforts to eliminate the crude and the subtle, and the false to the true. If you look directly at the ancient texts, you will find that a large number of ancient and modern literati and writers have commented on the Analects, and their interpretations are also different...... These undoubtedly increase the cost of reading for readers. ”
Explore the opportunity of short videos -
Explore the "revitalization of ancient books" through literature exhibitions, ancient books on campus, special lectures, cultural creativity, etc.
The Ancient Books Creative Contest brings new opportunities and new ideas for short videos
Although there are various reading thresholds for ancient books, it is still imperative for the society to pay widespread attention to the protection of ancient books.
Dou Peng, director of the Department of Historical Documents of Shaanxi Tu, said that although there is a certain reading threshold, if readers are confused and lack ideas about some issues, it is an effective way to trace the origin from ancient books. "The characters such as Mr. Zhu, Bai Ling, and Tian Xiao'e in "White Deer Plain" are the characters in the novel conceived by Mr. Chen Zhongzhong after consulting ancient books such as Chang'an, Lantian and Xianning......"
How to make ancient books attract more people's attention, Shaanxi Tu has carried out many years of exploration of "ancient book revitalization".
In recent years, Shaanxi has held activities such as ancient book engraving printing, tablet rubbing experience, ancient book culture into the campus, special lectures on ancient books, and knowledge sharing of ancient books, and carefully planned large-scale ancient book and document exhibition activities such as the release ceremony of the first batch of rare ancient books in Shaanxi Province and the exhibition of ancient book protection achievements, the exhibition of precious classics in the northwest region of the Silk Road, and the joint exhibition of library literature resources and cultural and creative products......
"These explorations have been relatively successful, but we still hope to explore some ways to spread the word to a wider audience, and this year's event has given us new opportunities and ideas. Dou Peng said.
In August this year, ByteDance Public Welfare and the National Library (National Center for the Protection of Ancient Books) and other units jointly launched the "Literacy Cup: Ancient Books Content Creative Season" activity, calling on everyone to interpret the connotation of ancient books and show the beauty of ancient books in the form of short videos, cultural and creative works, and visual design works. Dou Peng said that this coincides with Shaanxi's exploration of "ancient book revitalization" in recent years, so that more groups pay attention to ancient books, "After communicating with everyone, we want to give it a try, focusing on participation." ”
Brainstorming for Liberal Arts Students –
The creation of the treasure of the theme town hall is difficult to choose due to the large size of the collection
In ancient books, an inventor from Shaanxi in the Ming Dynasty invented a bicycle
The theme of the library group of the short video track of ByteDance's "Ancient Book Content Creative Season" is "The Treasure of the Town Library", which requires the participating libraries to create based on their own characteristic collections.
"Our treasure is huge and has a lot of volumes, and after deciding to participate, we fell into a difficult choice. Li Hang said that the Qing Dynasty Yongzheng copper movable type version of "Ancient and Modern Books Integration", Song and Yuan Dynasty editions of "Moraine Sand Collection" and other treasures of the town, but the rich connotation makes everyone do not know how to show it through short videos for a while, "Short videos are better with small incisions, and it is advisable to explain clearly within a few minutes." Around September, when everyone was discussing the direction of the topic, his colleague Zhang Yuqing mentioned the ancient books included in the museum, Wang Zheng's "Illustrated Illustration of the New Making". In this book, the author said that he invented a bicycle, "When the idea was proposed, everyone felt that the invention of bicycles by Shaanxi people in the Ming Dynasty was very topical, and it was also very close to public life, which was easy to arouse everyone's interest." We all felt good and decided on the topic. ”
"Zhang Yuqing is a post-90s generation in our department, and he put forward such a good idea, and the creative team members naturally have him. I was also a young man, so the director arranged for me to be an assistant. Li Hang said that although Zhang Yuqing graduated with a master's degree in science, he was a real liberal arts student.
Zhang Yuqing said, "I studied literature, but the history of science and technology awarded a degree in science. After the creative team determined to use the bicycle as the entry point, they inquired a lot of relevant information about Wang Zheng, and planned to restore the bicycle of the Ming Dynasty according to the content and pictures in the collection of "New Crafting Instruments", but it was not easy in reality, "The author is very funny, we want to restore his invention, but he wrote in the book, he only wrote the general principle, how to do it, at that time he should have been dictated to the professional craftsman......
"The text is obscure, the illustrations are not clear, and a few of us liberal arts students brainstorm together for the restoration of the bicycle. Zhang Yuqing said that the ancient machinery mostly relied on craftsmen to teach and circulate, relying only on text and a few illustrations, it is very difficult to restore, "I thought that restoration was an impossible thing at first, until I saw a gravity car model ......"
The ingenuity of short videos -
Preparation and creation of imperfectly restored bicycles and copywriting materials
"Thinking from the reader's point of view, the copywriting is simple and continues to attract attention"
Inspired by the gravity car model, the short video creation team believes that the bicycle created by Wang Zheng 400 years ago is similar to the gravity car. Zhang Yuqing said that the children of their colleagues have building blocks that can realize the creation of some mechanical models, so they asked their colleagues to let the children make a gravity car, and then they modified the gravity car according to the records of ancient books, "Although we restored the bicycle in the ancient books, it is not perfect." Because there is a statement in the book that "when the weight is exhausted, there will be another machine, and it will be ...... up", and there is a record of cranes in his other book "Illustration of Far Western Strange Weapons", so we think that it should also have some crane wheels, which can more conveniently realize the power range of the bicycle. ”
In order to enrich the content of the video and answer all kinds of questions from readers after the release of the short video as much as possible, Zhang Yuqing also inquired a lot of Wang Zheng's life information. Zhang Yuqing said that Wang Zheng was born in Jingyang, Shaanxi, and after the conversion of the lunar birth date, his birthday on the Gregorian calendar is Taurus. As a jinshi in the late Ming Dynasty, he was a trendy person, and had a foreign name called "Fei Libai" (modern transliteration as "Philips"). He is passionate about invention and has developed repeating crossbows, fire-fighting facilities, self-grinding, and farming tools. The Illustrated Diagram of Strange Instruments in the Far West, which he translated with Western missionaries, was the first monograph on the mainland to introduce mechanical engineering and physics in modern Europe......
"Zhang Yuqing is more academic, and I checked a lot of information for writing copywriting, and I used the information he found to write a video copy. Li Hang said that at that time, it was the end of September, and the entries needed to be submitted before October, so he took over the responsibility of copywriting and video production, "We have referred to a lot of excellent short videos, and we think that excellent popular science copywriting should think from the perspective of readers." From the familiar things to lead to the knowledge to be introduced, from shallow to deep, combined with hot events, people, skillful use of Internet hot stalks, constantly throw burdens, continue to attract attention......"
"In the copywriting, we mentioned that Musk, Leonardo da Vinci and other famous figures, mentioned the constellations that young people pay attention to, as well as Wang Zheng's hair dryer foreign name (Philips) and other information, and also used 'screenshots are even if you have learned' and other Internet hot memes...... Li Hang said that in the video production process, he deliberately used Shaanxi dialect AI dubbing, and at the same time used "Du Fu riding a bicycle" and other Internet hot meme pictures, and finally created a short video......
Breaking the Circle and New Plans
After the video was released, it sparked heated discussions among netizens and won the "New Stories of Ancient Books" award
Shaanxi's short video of "New Sayings of Ancient Books" will continue to be updated
On October 24, the official Douyin account of the Shaanxi Provincial Library released the short video, which sparked heated discussions among netizens. Many netizens shouted "increased knowledge", and some netizens discussed in the comment area to analyze the use of the bicycle...... According to the browsing data, the video has 2.5 million views and 39,000 likes. The official account of the Shaanxi Provincial Library has 23,000 followers, and the short video has become the most followed among the more than 800 short videos on the account.
In December this year, "Who Built a Bicycle in the Ming Dynasty" stood out from 182 entries in the "Zhidian Cup Ancient Books Content Creative Season" competition, won the "New Sayings of Ancient Books" award in this creative competition, and won a bonus of 100,000 yuan.
Talking about whether there are plans to continue to produce other short videos in the future, Li Hang affirmed that they have enough professional ability to show wonderful and interesting stories for readers in the boring sea of ancient books, "We are committed to digging out interesting stories in ancient books. In addition, they also plan to contact and cooperate with some toy manufacturers to try to realize more machinery and equipment recorded in ancient books through more delicate toys......
"I didn't expect it to arouse the attention and discussion of so many netizens, and the short video has opened up a new world for the display and dissemination of our ancient book content. Dou Peng said that the biggest difficulty in the dissemination of ancient books lies in breaking through the original inherent readership group, so that it can be known, accepted and loved by a wider audience and group. This event organized by ByteDance Public Welfare and Guotu made them realize that excavating the wonderful content in ancient books and presenting them in a way that is more acceptable to everyone may be able to stimulate readers' interest and guide more people to pay attention to ancient books and then have an in-depth understanding of ancient books. As the public collection unit with the largest number of ancient books in Shaanxi, Shaanxi has a wealth of ancient books to excavate, and the success of the "bicycle" short video will become a new starting point for their "ancient book revitalization". In the future, they will try to continue to develop new ancient book video works, "In the future, we may try to do a series of ancient book promotion plans with local characteristics such as the treasure of the town, "Moraine Sand Collection", "Ancient and Modern Book Collection", and Shaanxi Ancient Scientists, Shaanxi Champions, Shaanxi Xiangxian, and Shaanxi Local Chronicles." ”
The protection of ancient books does not stop here -
The Ancient Books Creative Competition is just one part of the Ancient Books Revitalization Project
ByteDance fully contributes to the protection of ancient books
According to public information, the Ancient Books Creative Contest is only part of ByteDance's public welfare ancient book revitalization project, which aims to allow more people to participate in the protection of ancient books and encourage everyone to use vivid and easy-to-understand content creation to bring ancient books into people's lives.
In recent years, ByteDance has continued to make efforts in the field of ancient book protection, helping the protection and inheritance of ancient books in three dimensions. In terms of ancient book restoration, in June 2021, ByteDance and the China Foundation for Cultural Heritage Conservation established a special fund for the protection of ancient books, which is used for the restoration of ancient books and talent training in the National Library and other institutions, including the restoration of 104 precious ancient books (including the Yongle Dadian Lake character album) and the training of more than 100 ancient book restorers.
In terms of digitization of ancient books, in 2022, ByteDance and Peking University will cooperate to launch a digital platform for reading ancient books, relying on technological advantages to help digitize ancient books and open them to the whole society for free. At present, the platform has launched more than 2,000 ancient books. On February 8 this year, ranked first in the first batch of projects of the National Ancient Books Digitization Project in 2021, under the planning and guidance of the National Ancient Books Collation and Publication Planning Leading Group, based on the Peking University-ByteDance Digital Humanities Open Laboratory, and integrating the strength of Peking University and ByteDance to form a joint design and R&D team, the completed "Yongle Dadian" high-definition image database (Volume I) was officially launched and opened to the public free of charge.
In terms of the revitalization of ancient books, on July 28, 2021, ByteDance Public Welfare, together with the China Foundation for Cultural Heritage Conservation and the National Library, launched the "Looking for Ancient Books Guardian" activity to recruit creators who promote the revitalization of ancient books and help the inheritance of traditional culture.
Huashang Daily Gale News reporter Zhang Pengkang K30