Mr. Wu Xi, a senior in the field of librarianship, once said: "Without the impact and influence of Western ideology and culture in modern society, China's library building would not have been able to evolve into a Western-style modern library by itself for a few more centuries." The lack of the basic mechanism for the evolution of modern libraries in China's old-style library is mainly due to the lack of factors that are open to the society, so it is impossible to become the matrix of the emergence of new-style libraries. Chinese and Western libraries have taken two completely different paths of development. ”
But did Chinese society really not have public libraries before the "Western ideological and cultural shock"? Or did traditional Chinese library buildings really lack public character and openness? To answer this question, it is necessary to focus on the Song Dynasty in China to see how far (or near) the form of library buildings at that time was from modern public libraries.
Book collection institutions in the Song Dynasty can be divided into four categories, the first type is private book collection institutions. Speaking of traditional Chinese private library buildings, I believe many people immediately think of the "Tianyi Pavilion" built by the Ming Dynasty bibliophile Fan Qin. The collection of books in Tianyi Pavilion is strictly forbidden to be borrowed, but Tianyi Pavilion is only an extreme form of the traditional library building, and it is difficult to say that it is universal. If we search for historical materials from Song Dynasty bibliophiles, it is not difficult to find open private libraries.
For example, Hu Zhongyao at the beginning of the Northern Song Dynasty, "lived together for many generations, up to hundreds." The school is built in the Hualin Mountain Villa, gathering tens of thousands of books, and setting up a kitchen to extend the Quartet to study in the Quartet. "Wang Qinchen, a bibliophile in the Northern Song Dynasty, "Every time I get a book, I will pass it on with waste paper, and I ask for another book to join the school." To the extent that there is no error, it is written. Each volume is only thirty or forty pages, and I am afraid that it is thick and easy to perish. This book is passed on to borrow and the children to view it. Song Minqiu, another bibliophile of the Northern Song Dynasty, had a collection of tens of thousands of books, "When he lived in Chunmingfang, scholars liked to read, and most of them lived on his side, so as to facilitate borrowing." At that time, the value of Chunmingfang's house was often twice as high as that of other places. ”
Of course, the private library of the Song Dynasty cannot be equated with the public library of modern times, but it can be said that it is the prototype of the public library. Mr. Chen Dengyuan, a senior historian, said in his "Examination of the Gathering and Dispersion of Ancient and Modern Classics": "The book collectors of the Song people have been able to serve as the cause of the library. In fact, many public libraries in Western Europe were also opened from private institutions.
The second category is the collection of books by social groups. The book collection institutions of social organizations are mainly the Siguan Library and the Academy Library Building. The temple library is a bit like the church library in Western Europe, but the openness of the temple library in the Song Dynasty is much greater than that of the Western European church library in the same period, not only the monks inside can read, the outside readers can also borrow for free, and the temple also provides a place for short-term accommodation to the readers, for those who are poor and unable to go to school, the temple library undoubtedly gives them a public channel to absorb knowledge.
The Song Dynasty Academy Library is a bit closer to the medieval university libraries of Western Europe. When the Song Dynasty was the rise and heyday of the academy, many scholars and doctors were committed to establishing the academy, and many of the academies had a rich collection of books, such as the Heshan Academy founded by Wei Liaoweng of the Southern Song Dynasty, and its library building "Zun Jing Pavilion" collected as many as 100,000 volumes. Of course, the College Library is a public facility for teachers and students to borrow books, rather than a private property for the founder of the College.
The third category is the national book collection institutions, mainly the Zhaowen Museum, the Jixian Museum, the History Museum and the Secret Pavilion. In addition, central institutions such as Guozijian, Sherenyuan, Yushitai, and Sitianjian also have library offices. The monarch of the Song Dynasty clearly said that the reason why the country set up three secret pavilions was to "store books from all over the world and extend the people from all directions". Judging from common sense, since the Secret Pavilion of the Third Pavilion is a state institution for storing and cultivating talents, it must be open to some scholars and doctors for them to read and collect books, otherwise how can they store and cultivate talents? Judging from the information revealed by historical materials, the collection of books of the State Library Collection in the Song Dynasty did allow scholars to enter the cabinet for reading or lending them out for reading.
The fourth category is local book collection institutions. In the Song Dynasty, there was a national library in the center, and there were also state and county libraries in the localities. Such as Zizhou's "Jushulou" and "Boya Hall", Jiankang Mansion's "Shuge", Qingyuan's "Chonglou", Yangzhou's "Library Building" and so on. The books in these local libraries were allowed to be borrowed by local scholars.
It can be seen from the above that China in the Song Dynasty had already produced libraries with public functions. Moreover, the number of libraries is not a small number, but it forms a network of libraries with a wide coverage. Although the libraries of the Song Dynasty cannot be compared with modern libraries in terms of quantity, scale of collections, or openness and publicity, it is clear that from the traditional library to the modern library, it is not "two completely different development paths", but a process of continuous expansion of the openness and publicity of the library.
What was a reading festival in ancient times? At that time, it was not called a "reading festival," but a "book exposing meeting." In the past, on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month every year, people would take out the books to bask in the sun, which would help to remove moisture, mildew, insects and moths. This is the custom of exposing books, but there was a historical change in the custom of exposing books in the Song Dynasty: from technical exposés to institutional "exposing books", that is, the collection of literati that was triggered by the exposing of books. During the period when the National Library of the Song Dynasty was exposed, the books in the dry were open to the scholars, and the scholars could go to the places where the books were exposed to observe the royal collection and other precious collections, and feast their eyes. The royal family also prepared tea and fruits to entertain the scholars who read the book, and set up a banquet for them. The exposure of books in the Northern Song Dynasty will last for three months, and the Southern Song Dynasty will last for two months.
Of course, the Song Dynasty's book exposé only allowed Hanlin and scholars (equivalent to national researchers) to enter and read books, and the openness was limited, but despite this, it still broke through the closed nature of the previous royal book collection. In addition to the super-large-scale book exposure meetings held by the state, book exposure parties were also held by the people at that time, and private book collections, academy collections, and local book collections in the Song Dynasty would hold book exposure meetings. (Wu Hook)
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