Prominent librarians book themselves a place in history

Thanks to the China Memory Project, those who have played a role in the country's library development had the opportunity to share their stories in a book series that was released at the 2023 Chinese Library Annual Conference in Zhengzhou, Henan province, last month.

"If we envisage a library as a human being, the librarians are its soul, keeping the library and its service alive," Tian Miao, deputy director of the project under the National Library of China, says in the preface of the series.

"What we record and preserve is not only the individual experiences of our predecessors, but also the development of China's library sector reflected in their memories."

Containing more than 1.3 million Chinese characters, the five-book series consists of interviews with 29 librarians aged above 80. Twelve of them have sadly passed away since making their contribution to the series.

"Because it is the first time we have comprehensively documented these important figures in the country's library sector, there are some regrets. Some interviewees couldn't finish the interviews due to health issues," Tian says.

"These precious memories in the book fill the academic gap of individual experiences in the history of the country's library domain, which have an important academic value," Cheng Huanwen, vice-president of the Library Society of China and deputy director of the book's editorial board, says, adding that the stories help readers connect the past to the present.

As a part of the China Memory Project, it took almost eight years for the book series to come to fruition. In 2015, the National Library of China and 30 other libraries and colleges initiated the oral history program to document the stories of prominent librarians. In 2021, the program inked a sponsorship deal with the National Publication Foundation. So far, 48 librarians have been interviewed for the project. After the publication of the first series, the second is already being busily prepared.

One of the interviewees, Pan Yinsheng, is glad to see the series' publication. As the former head of the Gansu Provincial Library, the 84-year-old has witnessed the rapid development of China's public libraries over the past four decades, such as the establishment of the Library Society of China in 1979.

"Through the consistent efforts of tens of thousands of librarians, the country's libraries are changing from traditional to modern and digital, and this can be seen in every city. The integration of technology into traditional libraries can offer innovative options to readers," Pan says.

According to the latest statistics from the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, by the end of last year, China had 3,303 public libraries, which, cumulatively, are home to nearly 1.4 billion books.

Pan is glad to share his experiences of the project with readers through video and text, which he says may provide a new direction for the collection of information.

Librarian Pierce Bulter from the United States says in his An Introduction to Library Science: "Books are a social mechanism for preserving racial memory, and the library is a social apparatus for transferring this to the consciousness of living individuals."

In Pan's opinion, modern libraries can preserve social memory not only via books, but also a variety of media.

Besides the book series, a documentary film, An Oral History: National Library of China, partly based on information gathered for the program, was screened during the conference, telling the history of the National Library of China. Founded in 1909, it has a collection of over 40 million books and receives more than 5 million visitors annually.

Besides the library program, Tian says the China Memory Project will launch a program collecting oral traditions of China's ethnic groups.

The China Memory project was initiated by the National Library of China in 2011. It seeks to provide a gateway to primary resources related to the country's culture and history, and the life stories of its people.