Chapter 30 Section 4 Popularization of Various Types of Libraries

With the general establishment of public libraries, other different types of libraries have also begun to be established, and our country's libraries have entered a period of popularization. The school library is a specialized book collection institution second only to the public library. In the twenty-fourth year of Guangxu (AD 1898), the Jingshi University Hall was established. The sixth chapter of the first chapter of its articles of association stated: "There are so many books that scholars should read, and one person cannot buy them all. The Jingshi University Hall is a model for all provinces, and the system You should be Chonghong, who now has a large library to collect and collect Western books for scholars to browse and spread the world." In 1902, Zhang Baixu, the minister of management and education, picked up provincial government bookstores or bought old folk books, current affairs new books, and foreign language books. Into the library, the official establishment of the library of the Imperial University Hall.

After the establishment of the library of Jingshi University, other provinces imitated it one after another, and the establishment of public and private university libraries sprung up very quickly.The library of Tsinghua University was established in 1911, the library of Beijing Higher Normal University was established in 1917, the library of Xiamen University was established in 1921, and the Muzhai Library of Nankai University was established in 1928. In 1931, there were about 70 universities and colleges across the country, as well as 30 specialized schools, and libraries were generally established.Of course, the number of books collected by each library is different and uneven. There are three libraries including Peking University with a collection of more than 200,000 volumes, six libraries including Southeast University with a collection of 100,000 to 200,000 volumes, and 36 libraries with less than 50,000 volumes. , 13 with less than 10,000 volumes.

Although there are few church university libraries, they pay attention to library management. The libraries of Shanghai St. John's University and Hujiang University, Nanjing Jinling University, Beijing Yenching University, and Guangzhou Lingnan University are more famous. According to the "First Chinese Education Yearbook" in 1933, there were 92 middle school libraries nationwide in 1927, some of which had excellent collections in both quality and quantity, among which Shanghai Nanyang Middle School, Chengzhong Middle School, Pudong Middle School, Beijing The libraries of Luhe Middle School and Huiwen Middle School in Xiamen, Jimei School in Xiamen, and Nankai Middle School in Tianjin have a large collection of books.The collections of these libraries have their own characteristics, such as the local chronicles of Nanyang Middle School, and the Chinese and Western rare books of Luhe Middle School.In 1933, Jimei School had a collection of 42,917 books, even more than some junior colleges.

In addition to school libraries, other professional libraries have also developed. Many government agencies, social groups, and press and publication departments have established very powerful libraries.For example, the libraries of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Communications, the Academia Sinica Library, the Palace Museum Library, the Peking Political Science Society Library, the Education Association Libraries of Zhejiang and Jiangsu Provinces, the Shanghai General Chamber of Commerce Library, and the Shengjing Times Library , the Oriental Library of the Commercial Press, the Zhonghua Book Company Library, etc., have a large collection of books.These libraries have their special collection requirements, forming their own collection characteristics, and they are famous collection institutions that cannot be underestimated.The most famous ones are the Oriental Library of the Commercial Press and the Library of the Palace Museum in Beijing.

According to the work needs of the Commercial Press, the Oriental Library collects both old and new books.The Oriental Library was expanded based on the Hanfen Building founded by Zhang Yuanji in 1904.After the establishment of Hanfenlou, Zhang Yuanji spared no expense in collecting rare books and secret books. He successively purchased the collections of several major bibliophiles in the south of the Yangtze River. In addition to Zhang's deliberate search, before the war in Hanfenlou in 1932, the collection of rare books had reached There are 50,000 volumes, including 129 Song editions, 179 Yuan editions, 718 manuscript editions, 460 transcripts, and 288 editions approved by celebrities. The collection of Song and Yuan editions exceeds that of Huang Pilie, which is unparalleled in modern private collections. In 1924, the Commercial Press built a five-story reinforced concrete building, and decided to change the name of Hanfen Building to the Oriental Library. The Oriental Library opened on May 2, 1926.In addition to the collection of ancient books from the original Hanfen Building, the library had a total of 502,765 books in 1931, including 398,765 Chinese books.There are 3,745 kinds of rare books and 35,083 volumes. Except 5,370 volumes are stored in the vault of Jincheng Bank, the rest are preserved in the rare book showroom on the third floor of the new building, which is still called Hanfen Building.There are about 80,000 books in Western languages, and there are also a large number of Japanese books, textbooks, maps, wall charts, rubbings, newspapers, magazines, etc.The museum employs Wang Yunwu as the director, and has a deputy director and directors of general affairs, Chinese, Western, circulation and research departments. After the museum opened in 1926, it was read publicly and served the society. In 1928, a children's library was added.Readers only need to pay a deposit to read and borrow books from the library. In 1930, the number of readers was about 36,800, and 45,517 books were borrowed.

The library of the Palace Museum was established in 1925. In November 1924, the national army under the jurisdiction of Feng Yuxiang expelled Puyi from the palace. For this reason, a committee for the aftermath of the Qing Dynasty was established to inventory the items in the Palace Museum. In October 1925, the Palace Museum was officially established, with two libraries of antiquities and books.The library is divided into books and documents.The Shou'an Palace on the West Road outside the Forbidden City was selected as the site of the library, and the Nansan Institute was selected as the site of the Department of Literature.The library department is organized based on the original collection of the Forbidden City; the literature department is the archives of the Ming and Qing Dynasties.Among the books, except for the original storage of the four libraries of Wenyuan Pavilion, the books scattered in the Forbidden City were mainly collected in Shou'an Palace, cataloged, and classified into various libraries.In addition to Chinese documents, there are 362 kinds of Manchu books and 12,843 volumes, among which there are many rare books at home and abroad, such as "Yu Zhi Wu Ti Qing Wen Jian" is one example.According to statistics in 1936, there are 70,705 kinds of books and 331,293 volumes in total.The collection includes Wenyuan Pavilion's "Siku Quanshu", "Siku Quanshu Huiyao", 1062 volumes of 11,150 volumes of other rare books, 5 volumes of 854 volumes of Song block editions, 80 volumes of 765 volumes of Yuan block editions, 184 volumes of 1,288 volumes of manuscripts, and palace books. 808 parts and 35096 volumes.There are 1052 volumes in 13,293 volumes in the Department of Classics, 28,261 volumes in 1,316 volumes in the Department of History, 36,877 volumes in 1,543 sub-sections, and 27,268 volumes in 1,951 types in the Collection Department.