Chapter 31 Section 5 Transformation from ancient library building to modern library

After the Revolution of 1911, especially after the "May 4th" New Culture Movement, the library industry in my country underwent a qualitative change. This change was carried out simultaneously with the progress of Chinese society. Its main manifestations are: At the end of the Qing Dynasty, a group of people with lofty ideals put forward the idea of ​​reforming our country's cultural education after being exposed to Western capitalist cultural education.Early works such as Ma Jianzhong's "Shikezhai Records of Words and Actions", Wang Tao's "Taoyuan Wenlu Outer Edition", and Zheng Guanying's "Prosperity and Dangerous Words" all reflect the desire to use public libraries to enlighten people's wisdom, cleanse people's hearts, and revitalize China .The library building in ancient China played its role in preserving classics and spreading culture.However, ancient libraries often required the collection of rare and lonely books, which were stored in high cabinets and stored in stone canals. Exclusiveness and closure were the characteristics of feudal libraries.Although the official collections in ancient times were rich, ordinary people could not see them, and only a few scholar-bureaucrats used them. The nature of public libraries is to popularize national education and meet the needs of the people.The Guyue Library founded by Xu Shulan (1837-1902) in Shaoxing, Zhejiang Province is a typical example of this transformation.It is clearly stated in the building's "Text of Soliciting the Lord for Counseling" that the library is "to prepare for the observation of people from all over the country, and to serve as the auxiliary wing of prefectural and county studies".It advocates preserving the past and opening up the new.Under the guidance of this idea, the collection is classified according to the "Ministry of Science" and "Ministry of Government", including a collection of classics and history, books of various sciences of sound, light, chemistry, and various pictures, journals, and daily newspapers. The library has more than 70,000 volumes for readers to read.

In the feudal society, most of the collections in the library were ancient books, and most of them were rare books and rare books. The collections of modern libraries are different due to the nature and mission of the library; or according to the content, type and readership of publications Need to be focused.For example, national libraries such as the Beijing Library are required to collect all Chinese books and periodicals because they are the national general library; another example is the Tianjin Children's Library established in 1917, and the Shanghai Commercial Library opened in 1922 are all open to the public , but according to the nature and tasks of their respective libraries, they collect books that meet the characteristics of their own collections.A comprehensive university library, in addition to general new books, meets the needs of students to absorb new knowledge, and pays special attention to the collection of Chinese and foreign magazines. It is of great benefit to expand knowledge and broaden knowledge.

Due to the development of society and the improvement of printing technology, there has been a leap in book publishing and printing, and the number of publications has increased greatly.Faced with a large number of publications, library management must be standardized and scientific.Due to the introduction of new learning and Western learning and the publication of books, the original four library classifications in China can no longer accurately reflect the types of books, so the classification of books broke the Chinese classics created by Xun Xu in the Western Jin Dynasty and revised by Li Chong in the Eastern Jin Dynasty. Four categories, history, sub-collections, and collections, adopt a multi-classification method, that is, old books and ancient books are still classified in four libraries; new books are classified according to disciplines, or text, law , science, medicine, industry, and magazines, and later developed into the Chinese's own taxonomy, such as the taxonomy of Liu Guojun and Du Dingyou.Their taxonomy is based on modern scientific classification, indicating the author, publisher, place of publication, publication time, edition, format, etc. of the book, which provides convenience for book management and readers' borrowing. In 1908, the library of the Chinese branch of the Shanghai Asian Cultural Society was the first to use a card catalog, which facilitated readers' retrieval.According to the needs of readers, the libraries have gradually carried out open-shelf reading, book lending, inter-library loan and other work.

In the past, most of the readers in the library building in feudal society were officials and scholar-bureaucrats. After the establishment of the modern library, its readers are all-round, oriented to readers of men, women and children from different industries.This is especially evident in popular libraries established everywhere.