□ reporter Li Meilin
The Modern Chinese Dictionary (5th Edition), the Guxun Huihui, the Chinese Translation of The World Academic Masterpieces Series (Rare Edition), the Modern Chinese Dictionary (6th Edition), the Qian Zhongshu Manuscript Collection and Notes in Foreign Languages, the Complete Collection of Contemporary Chinese Designs (all 20 volumes), the Ciyuan (Third Edition), the Ancient Yin Compilation... Since 2007, the Commercial Press's fine books have won the China Publishing Government Award Book Award for five consecutive years. In order to explore the story behind the "five consecutive championships", a reporter from China Press, Publication, Radio and Telegraph recently interviewed Xu Congquan, deputy director of the Chinese Editing Center of the Commercial Press and director of the Ancient Chinese Dictionary Editing Office.
Behind the consecutive awards, it reflects the responsibility of the publishers of the Commercial Press, who stand on the rich cultural fertile soil of China and the West to find inspiration, and launch excellent publishing products that inherit civilization, disseminate knowledge and promote social development; always adhere to cultural feelings, pioneering and innovative academic spirit and quality first consciousness throughout the production of fine products.
The sense of quality runs through the whole process
The book "Ancient Yin Hui" that won the Fifth China Publishing Government Award Book Award is another large-scale Chinese reference book with a scale of more than 10 million words launched by the Commercial Press after "Ciyuan" and "Guxun Hui". As a collection of Chinese character pronunciation materials in previous dynasties, the book was established in 1998 as a major collective scientific research project of the National University Ancient Books Collation and Research Committee, was included in the "Eleventh Five-Year Plan" National Key Book Publishing Planning Project, and in 2019 was included in the National Publishing Fund Project, compiled by the Institute of Ancient Books Collation of Wuhan University, which lasted for 22 years.
In terms of the compilation team, the compilers of the "Ancient Yin Hui" are basically the original team members of the "Ancient Training Hui compilation". Xu Congquan introduced: "The editor-in-chief of this book is Zong Fubang, a famous linguist, a lexicographer, and a senior professor of humanities and social sciences at Wuhan University. From the writing, reviewing and finalizing the manuscript, there is a strict operation process, and the editor-in-chief responsibility system is implemented. ”
The book compilation team and the editorial team of the Commercial Press carried forward the spirit of craftsmanship, and after day after day of arduous and complicated work, they created this systematic, comprehensive and thick ancient Chinese phonetics work, and the sense of quality runs through all aspects of the book selection, compilation, editing and processing, and publication. The award-winning "Ciyuan" (third edition) and "Modern Chinese Dictionary" (6th edition) also reflect the original intention and mission of cultural workers to be good and serve academia.
Behind the "five consecutive championships", in addition to carrying forward the spirit of craftsmanship and focusing on creating fine products, it is also inseparable from the purpose of the Commercial Press to develop theme publishing and highlight social benefits, actively explore the road of theme publishing, and publish books with themes to carry forward the core values of socialism and highlight the main theme of the times.
Realize the long-cherished wishes of generations of scholars
Talking about the significance and value of "Ancient Music Collection" in the field of ancient book publishing, Xu Congquan told reporters that pioneering, complete sound reception, attention to sound and meaning matching, meticulous proofreading, and complete style are the characteristics and highlights of "Ancient Music Collection".
Xu Congquan introduced that the goal of compiling the "Ancient Yin Hui" is to follow the concept of Huang Kan and Wu Chengshi in the 1920s and 1930s to compile the "Classics of the Classics" and "The Old Sounds of the Classics", paying equal attention to the source and flow, starting from the pre-Qin Dynasty to the end of the Qing Dynasty, covering the transliteration materials of ancient, medieval and modern Chinese characters, and providing phonetic contexts and character meaning interpretations, forming a systematic and complete compilation of Chinese character pronunciation materials in previous dynasties, and striving to explore the trajectory of the development and evolution of Chinese characters. This book fills the academic gap and realizes the long-cherished wishes of generations of scholars in the past hundred years.
The main text of the "Ancient Yin Compilation" is arranged according to 214 radicals, and the pronunciation materials are arranged according to the three segments of ancient sounds, middle ancient sounds, and modern sounds. More than 13,000 words (including variant characters) were received, more than 300,000 annotations were received, more than 400,000 annotations were made, and the scale reached more than 13 million words. The book has important reference value for Chinese studies, especially the study of Chinese phonetics, literature annotation and dictionary compilation, and the study of traditional Chinese culture.
Craftsmen are ingenuity to undertake the heavy responsibility of publishing
In the construction of the talent team, the Commercial Press always requires all employees to adhere to the correct political direction, closely follow the pulse of the development of the times, and play an active role in disseminating the party's innovative theories, meeting the people's spiritual and cultural needs, and enhancing the soft power of national culture. In the construction of the editorial echelon, the "mentor system" is implemented, the role of excellent backbone editors in "passing on help" is brought into play, leading young comrades to learn and grow, gradually becoming familiar with the business, proficient in the business, and publishing readers and market-recognized high-quality books with "business" level.
Taking the compilation and publication process of "Ancient Music Collection" as an example, Xu Congquan told reporters that as early as June 2007, the Commercial Press officially included it in the selection of topics and signed a publishing agreement with the Wuhan University Ancient Books Institute. The total database of the book's materials amounted to more than 1 million, and the first draft was sorted out with nearly 20 million words, but the publication agreement required a length control of 13 million words. Appropriately compressing the length of the article is undoubtedly an important task for the editorial team of the "Ancient Yin Compilation" and the compilers of Wuhan University.
"We have consulted with the compilers of Wuhan University many times, repeatedly run into each other, clarified the principle of seeking refinement without seeking perfection, and worked hard from the four aspects of selection, selection, article selection, and book selection, and formulated a specific plan for controlling the length of the article." Xu Congquan introduced.
The Commercial Press places high demands on the quality of citations in dictionaries. After consultation, the editorial team of the "Ancient Music Collection" and the compilers of Wuhan University determined that the annotations and annotations would first be changed from the main body order to the order of each bibliograph through the electronic form, and then the graduate students organized by the Wuhan University Ancient Books Institute would review the similarities and differences with the quotations through the electronic search system such as the "Four Libraries and Complete Books", and if there was any doubt, the compilers of the Wuhan University Ancient Books Institute would review and confirm. After nearly two years, a total of more than 10,000 differences have been found, and more than 4,000 errors need to be corrected.