Cataloguing of ancient books is the oldest craft in the library industry and the crown jewel of the library profession, which is itself a study of ancient books.
The ultimate goal of cataloguing ancient books is to objectively and accurately describe ancient books and provide accurate and reliable information guidance for the collation and research of ancient books.
Shen Congwen
In the Department of Ancient Books of the Documentation Center of Shanghai Library, Shen Congwen continued the work of his predecessors: to thoroughly sort out nearly 200,000 rare books in the library's collection in the past 100 years, and catalog them on the basis of edition identification.
This project is called the "Catalogue of Ancient Books and Rare Books of Shanghai Library" project, which is something that generations of people have wanted to do but have no conditions to do.
Shen Congwen was born in an intellectual family in Shanghai, the year he was born, the famous writer Shen Congwen had just made a comeback, out of preference for the writer's knowledge and personality, his parents named him Shen Congwen.
Shen Congwen is a typical "other people's child", he likes to read since he was a child, and his grades are excellent, and he studied from undergraduate to doctoral degree at Fudan University, specializing in ancient literature and classical philology.
In 2011, he joined the Shanghai Library.
Cataloguing staff of ancient books in Shanghai Library
Shen Congwen
"I think it's too difficult to deal with people, but I still find it easier to deal with books, and I often feel inexplicably excited when I see books since I was a child. The library has easy access to the original materials, and in the course of your work, you can discover things that no one has noticed before, and you can have the pleasure of opening up a new continent. ”
However, even with such a dazzling learning experience, entering the Shanghai Library requires "starting from scratch".
The first thing in the training of bibliography is to touch the books, read them one by one, compare them with each other, recognize and remember the characteristics of different generations and different editions, and accumulate them over time and internalize them into a kind of perfect eyesight.
Although Shen Congwen has undergone systematic theoretical training, he is still a primary school student in practice, and he can't even determine the font at first.
Cataloguing staff of ancient books in Shanghai Library
Shen Congwen
"In the final analysis, the identification of ancient book editions is still a practical discipline, no matter how fanciful the theory is, the most important thing is to put an ancient book in front of you, whether you can judge what era it is, what style it is, what era of engravings, the key is to return to the physical version to identify these."
Chen Xianxian
Shen Congwen's mentor was Chen Xianxing, who served as the director of the Department of Ancient Books at the Shanghai Library.
Cataloguing ancient books is not a day's work, and in the picture above, there are not many people who can pick up this burden. In Chen Xianxing's eyes, Shen Congwen is a leader among young people.
He is a seed of reading, professionally trained, and most importantly able to endure loneliness.
Shen Congwen works in the stacks of books
Chen Xianxing is one of the best experts in the field of edition authentication and cataloguing of ancient books, and his achievements come from his 50 years of experience in the Shanghai Library.
Former Director of the Cataloguing Department of Ancient Books of Shanghai Library
Chen Xianxian
"It's a job that sits on a cold bench. In order to master the method of cataloging or appraising editions and improve the level of appraisal editions, it is not possible to do it overnight, you need to sit on the cold bench, operate it for a long time, and do your own work, which is very important. ”
Shen Congwen's current "Catalogue of Ancient Books and Rare Books in Shanghai Library" is a piece of Chen Xianxing's heart.
In the 1970s, Premier Zhou Enlai instructed to find out the rare books of the country, and through that census, the above picture also made a thorough survey of the rare books in the library.
However, due to the tight time and the fact that many census takers are not professional, there are not a few rare books that have been identified incorrectly, and a considerable number of them have not been included in the "Bibliography of Chinese Ancient Rare Books" because of missing checks.
The editor-in-chief of the Bibliography of Chinese Rare Books was none other than Chen Xianxian's superior and master, Gu Tinglong, who was the director of the Shanghai Library at the time.
Gu Tinglong and Chen Xianxing
The two met in 1973, and until Gu Tinglong's death in 1998, in 25 years, Chen Xianxing and Gu Tinglong were both superiors and subordinates, as well as masters and apprentices.
In the 18 years of surveying and sorting out ancient books, Chen Xianxing also participated in it as Gu Tinglong's assistant, and he knew well that Gu Lao had worked hard for this and the regrets he had left.
In the 1990s, Chen Xianxing served as the director of the Department of Ancient Books of the Shanghai Library, and was ready to start the project of "Cataloguing Rare Books of the Shanghai Library", but unfortunately the Department of Ancient Books was abolished before it began.
After Chen Xianxian's retirement, he was rehired by the unit for ten years, and at the age of 70, he officially went through the retirement procedures.
On the occasion of his retirement, Chen Xianxing is also very pleased that this project that he has been thinking about for decades can be started, and in any case, this pulse of Shanghai Library is continued.
The growth of modern China is undergoing a transformation from material consumption to spiritual consumption. In this process of transformation, the popularization of culture and the improvement of cultural literacy are the key, and libraries can play a leading role in it.
There are more than 3,000 libraries in China, and hundreds of thousands of librarians maintain their operations on a daily basis. From the National Library of Beijing, to the Nanjing Library, the Zhejiang Library, the Shanghai Library, and the Department of Library Science of Wuhan University, how do they classify and catalog books? How should rare books be protected, preserved and restored? How to move libraries towards public and service-oriented in the transformation of modern society?
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Born for Books: A Century of Dialogue with Librarians
Source: Phoenix Vision
Editor: Wang Dingyao