Funding shortage destroying ancient books

As much as 10 percent of the 500,000 ancient books in Central China's Henan provincial library were found seriously damaged because of a lack of maintenance.

More than 100,000 of the library's ancient books needed restoration and 50,000 of those were seriously damaged, Du Tao, director of the executive office of the Henan provincial library, told China Daily on Wednesday.

The library does not have sufficient funding or staff, and this has threatened the safety of the books, he said.

"Preserving and protecting ancient books requires professional workers with specialized skills. However, the ancient books department has only 11 workers, and only two of them are professional conservators with the skills to maintain ancient books," he said.

"More than 100,000 ancient books have to be repaired, but each worker could repair at most 300 annually," said Xia Guojun, one of the two conservators in Henan provincial library. "The speed of the destruction is much faster than the speed of mending."

According to a Dahe Daily report, many ancient books in the provincial library have rotted and were prone to crumbling to pieces when touched.

"The pages of many books have stuck together with rotted color - dark, brown or yellow. Wind comes from the window and blows the pieces of paper in every direction. Many of the ancient books are infested with worms," the report said.

Du confirmed to China Daily on Wednesday.

Yang Yang, president of the provincial library, said the library has long suffered from a funding shortage, which caused the failure of maintenance.

"We have often applied for money from the provincial government, but we have never gotten any, except for once in 2009 when the provincial government gave the library 300,000 yuan ($47,000)," Yang said on Wednesday.

Yang said that for want of special equipment, workers use a feather duster to dust the ancient books.

Book maintenance would not bring direct economic returns, so the local government is reluctant to spend money on preserving ancient books, he said.

Li Kezheng, the library's deputy president, said the ancient books are treasures inherited from ancient saints and should not be allowed to disintegrate, according to Henan Business Daily.

This is not the first time ancient books were reportedly being destroyed. More than 100,000 ancient books in Central China's Hunan province were found to be seriously damaged in 2010, and the local government allocated more than 10 million yuan to maintain them, according to Hunan Daily.

In a notice released in 2007, the State Council urged local governments to devote more money and effort to the preservation and protection of ancient books, and called for training programs to increase the number of professionals skilled at maintaining such books.

The Ministry of Culture required local governments of all levels to fund ancient book registration and protection projects in a notice issued in December.

Du Tao, director of the library's executive office, said that the library is going to ask the provincial cultural department to increase funding for the protection of these books.

More than 10 million ancient books nationwide are deteriorating and fewer than 100 professional conservators, most aged 40 to 45, are working on their preservation, according to China Youth Daily.

anbaijie@chinadaily.com.cn