This Day, That Year: Sept 23

Editor's note: This year marks the 70th anniversary of the founding of New China.

On Sept 23, 1983, construction of a new Beijing Library began in western Beijing. It had been proposed earlier by then-premier Zhou Enlai.

It was the China's largest library at the time, with a total floor space of 140,000 square meters.

By then, it was also the second-largest in the world, next to the Library of Congress in the United States.

On Oct 6, 1987, the library opened, as seen in an item from China Daily.

On Dec 12, 1998, the State Council, China's Cabinet, officially named it the National Library of China. Its forerunner was established in 1909 during the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911).It now houses nearly 40 million books and annually logs more than 5 million visits.

The library serves as a repository for the nation's publications. It also has a national bibliographic center and a center for the preservation and conservation of ancient books.

The library houses more than 1.9 million records, including 270,000 rare items.

Books in 115 foreign languages constitute half the collection, making the library the largest collector of foreign publications in China.

The library has set up the Wenjin Book Awards, which is aimed at popularizing reading.

A national project was undertaken in 2007 to systematically investigate, categorize, restore and digitally copy huge numbers of ancient books that are scattered nationwide.

In the national library alone, digital copies of 32,000 ancient books have been uploaded online.

Last year, to better protect the country's ancient literary treasures, the library announced a plan to build a new book repository in Chengde county, Hebei province.

Construction of the repository-which is mostly underground and around 68,000 sq meters-is expected to continue until 2021.

Beside book preservation, the national library has also played a significant role in global cooperation.

It has set up publication exchanges with 550 institutions in more than 110 countries and regions and signed cooperation agreements with 52 libraries around the world.

It set up the Silk Road International Library Alliance last year.