were there libraries in ancient china?

Lots. What kind of info are you looking for?

Zunjing de Li Shi Min,

Well, Brother Snowybeagle is correct; even though libraries were not organized in the exact same way as they are in today’s society, a very similar institution definitely existed in ancient times. So, I really think that you must be more specific in your question. For example, are you talking about public libraries or Imperial libraries?

Xie Xie,

There were various types of Libraries in ancient China: Private Library, Imperial Library, Public Library etc.

Private and Imperial Library

Libraries in ancient China originated with the appearance of the 1st book in China.

According to I-Ching 《易·系辟上》, it was said that "The river produces picture, channel produces books"
("河出图，洛出书"). From this, we can derive that the collection of books had already appeared during Zhou dynasty. They appeared as private libary by private collectors.

By Zhou period, there is already a "Court Historian" post to organize the books in the Court. According to Shiji, it was said that Lao Tzu had once became a "historian of the room for collection of books". In Ban Gu's Hanshu, it was also mentioned that Lao Tzu was once a historian, reading a collection of books. It is understood that at that time, there was already a "Court Library" and Lao Tzu could be the librarian in charge of the library.

When Confucius toured each state during the Spring/Autumn period, he read the books of 120 states. At that time, there were many libraries and a vast collection of books.

By western han period, the imperial court placed a strong emphasis on the groundwork of collecting books for the library. Emperor Han of Wu (Han Wudi) first ordered a collection of various books across the empire, and built an imperial library (government library) within his palace. Some people mentioned that this was the 1st record of "library" in ancient China. Later on, the Liu family began to carry out various archiving and editing of books in the library. Most of the books in the imperial library belonged to the court. The commoners were normally not able to read them.

Public Library

According to most views, China's earliest public library was established in 1907 (known as Jiangnan Library). However, in actual historical research, China's first public library can be traced back to Southern Song dynasty. According to records in "Guangxing Fuzhi 《广信府志》", it was recorded that "during the reign of Guang Zong and Ning Zong (1190-1200), Zhao Buyu 赵不迂（晋臣）built a "Shulou 书楼" (literally translated as "Book Pavilion" - the term for library in ancient times) to allow all people to visit. There is a vast collection of books in 4 sections (classics, history, philosophy, collection)". In addition, in the records of "Jia Xuan Ji Ti《稼轩集 词题》", it was recorded that a person by the name of Zheng Wenying built a "Cao Jing Lou 巢经楼 " and beside it was a "Shang You Zi 尚友斋" that had a vast collection of books. People who wish to borrow the books can take it off to read, but now bring them away.

The above two examples are quite similar to the reading rooms in the Library. Thus, we can inferred that the history of public library in ancient China is at at least 800 years.

Of course, the Jiangnan Library established in 1907 is the earlest modern library in China. There was also a Hubei Province Library which was established in 1904. In 1905, there was also a Hunan Province library. All these library uses the term "Tu Shu Guan 图书馆", which means library in modern chinese.

Organisation of Books

In general, the collection of books in library in ancient China are organized into 4 sections (known as "Si Bu 四部" as follow:

1. Jingbu 经部 (Classics Section) - Chiefly 5 Confucian classics such as "Book of Poetry 诗"、"Book of History 书"、"Book of Change 易"、"Book of Rites 礼"、"Book of Chun Qiu 春秋". From Tang to Song period, confucian classics were expanded to 13 classics including "Book of Change 易"、"Book of History 书"、"Book of Poetry 诗"、"Zhou Li 周礼"、"Yi Li 仪礼"、"Li Ji 礼记"、"Zuo Zhuang 左传"、"Gong Yang Zhuan 公羊传"、"Gu Liang Zhuan 谷梁传"、"Analects of Confucius 论语"、"Filial Pietry Classics 孝经、"Er Ya 尔雅"、"Mencius 孟子".

2. Shibu 史部 (History Section) - all the history books that recorded the historical events of every dynasty. Ever since 4,000 years ago, China already had its own historical records. All collections belonged to this section. From the start of Shiji, each dynasty had its own authoritative history known as "24 Histories". In addition, there are also ancient history, fictional history, legal treatise, geographical history, bureaucracy documents, imperial documents, time commands etc. Anything that record events became part of this section.

3. Zibu 子部 (Hundreds of Thoughts) - refer to various schools of thoughts and their learning. During the Spring/Autumn and Warring States period, various schools of philosophy emerged, creating a strong academic atmosphere during that time. This produced various schools of thoughts in philosophy, dialectician, legalism, medicine, mathematics, military studies, astronomy, agriculture etc. Every school of thoughts will have their own books. They become important books after the classics. Daoism, Neo-Confucianism, Verification Studies of Qing dynasty belonged to this section.

4. Jibu 集部 (Literature Collection) - refer to a collections of prose, poem, writings, literary commentary written by various scholars and authors.

For more info, refer to
Source: http://www.chinaculture.org/gb/cn_zgwh/200...ntent_54546.htm

The Luoshu 洛书 (Luo River Book) was actually not a book. It is believed to be either the Eight Trigrams or the Magic Square, which in the ancient legend is brought out of the Luo River by a divine tortoise. However, there is a dispute over whether the Hetu 河图 (Yellow/He River Chart) is the same thing as the Luoshu, or different.

The largest libraries in ancient China were always those of emperors, because they had the means of collecting books from all over the empire. But these libraries would only be accessible to the emperor, court ministers, and the court historians. Private libraries did develop, mainly among the elite literati families for the purpose of self-study and educating the young. The oldest surviving such library in China is the Tianyi Ge near Ningbo, built in the Ming dynasty (I visited it two years ago). But in the Ming dynasty, many local officials also built public libraries for the people in the areas they governed, containing works that were considered useful in moral education - there is an interesting essay about this trend in Timothy Brook's "The Chinese State in Ming Society" (2005).

Were these libraries public as in state-run? or were these libraries privately built with private funds but they were opened to public? and if this was the case, who operated and funded the maintence?

They were built using the local officials' own funds, but open to all residents of the area.

how about the maintenance funds?

Clarification: the libraries were built for state schools, so they were open to students of various levels. This is what I wrote in an essay last year:

Brook makes the argument that libraries for Confucian state schools in the counties were almost never built by the gentry, who preferred to patronize Buddhist monasteries. Instead, libraries were built by local officials who were outsiders to the local community – suggesting that libraries were an element of state power and not local power, part of “the state’s project to edify and control knowledge”.

The more well off gentries and merchants would have their own private libraries, but the collections would depend on individual tastes.

As far as I am aware of, though various encyclopaedias were available in China from early times, the notion of a library (other than the Imperial Library) to be a repository of all forms of general knowledge, akin to the Great Libary of Alexandria, was not the norm in ancient China.

Some collected because it was fashionable to do so, hankering after the most vogue poems, calligraphy or paintings. Others did it out of personal interests, and their collection would reflect thus : philosophy, medicine, court cases, commentaries etc.

Zunjing de China History Forum members,

May I ask which Emperor was the first to establish an Imperial library in the Royal Palace? Was he very fond of studying and reading books?

Xie Xie,

"Libraries in ancient China originated with the appearance of the 1st book in China"

The first books were the bamboo scrolls right? ...before paper was invented during Han

Zunjing de Intranetusa,

Yeah, I have just realized what a stupid question I have asked! Of course, libraries had always existed throughout the history of writing; they were just in different forms. Hence, to have raised the question, “Which Emperor was the first to establish an Imperial library?” was totally foolish!

Yes, I am aware some of the earliest writings were on bamboo scrolls until paper was invented later in the Han Dynasty. Honestly, these bamboo scrolls were quite uncomfortable for the writers as well as the keepers.

Xie Xie,

I'm just curious how are the books in Chinese libraries catalog (since there is no alphabet system)?

Were there alot of ancient libraries in China?

Are there alot of public libraries in modern China like in the West (like in the U.S. & Canada)?

Is there such thing as used book stores in China or with overseas Chinese Communities (like in Sigapore, Malaysia etc)

Do alot of Chinese (in China. Not overseas Chinese) place alot of value on certain books? I know in the West certain old books are value alot and they can be bought & sold at used book stores for quite abit of money. Sometimes if the book (like a modern book) is very popular its reprinted again but if I'm not mistaken it seems alot of Chinese publishers dont reprint books????

For ancient libraries in China, refer to http://www.chinahistoryforum.com/index.php?showtopic=14785



Yes, tonnes of public libraries in modern China. There are also many private libraries with schools, universities.

Not to mention, the largest public library in China is the online chinese internet. You can find almost any information on chinese history/culture on the chinese internet, not to mention almost all the ancient chinese classics are available online for reading (free of charge) or available for download in the form of e-book.



Yes, there are such bookstores in Singapore which sells old chinese books. You can also trade-in old books.



It's not true that "chinese publishers don't reprint books". Most of famous classics and many old books that are valuable and famous are often reprinted again.

You might also like to look at this thread:

Classical Chinese libraries

Thanks General Zhaoyun and William O'Chee. Interesting info. And thanks for the links.

(I have to remind myself to do a search befor posting a topic. )

Chinese books in modern libraries are classified according to alphabetical order. All Chinese novels and storybooks are classified according to the authors' names (their names are in Chinese, but the chinese characters would be converted to Hanyu Pinyin). For instance, if you are looking for a book, let's say, Bi Xue Jian written by Jin Yong, the code of the book would be JNYG. And if you're looking for a book written by Ba Jin, the code of the book would be BAJN. It's all alphabetical order, except for reference books like medicine, history, geography, physics...blah blah blah...which would be in numbers, according to sections too. If I remember correctly, the code number for the China History section in Singapore libraries is 951.

However, if you're wondering about ancient libraries, no, I don't think they are grouped according to alphabetical order. In fact, I believe that they were grouped according to subjects and sections, like the history section, the geography section, the classics section, the literature section...so on and so forth. However, I am not sure how all the historical books are grouped, as in, are they according to the names of the authors or probably, are they grouped according to the dates of which the books are written (from the earliest to the latest)? Or maybe they were just slumped on the shelves in no order? That might be the case for public libraries (books are grouped according to sections and then slumped on the shelves), but if let's say you're wondering about the imperial libraries, I don't think so. I think there is some sort of an order, and my guess is that the books in a particular section are arranged according to the dates of which they are written.

Oh! this is how some of them were catalog. I didnt know that. This is interesting.
I think it must be more time consuming to find certain books in ancient libraries than what we have today.
I have never been to a Chinese library so this is new to me. I use to work at a public library that had Chinese books but the books were catalog with a color dot and some letters. It was always messy there because alot of peole didnt seem to know where to put the book back after looking at them.
Thanks Liu Bang!

Definitely. As time passes and technology improves, you'll find that everything would be more easy. Who knows, maybe robots will be utilized to help us find books in the library a century later?



I have never seen a library book catalogued with a colour dot, not in Singapore, at least. Therefore libraries that use this method must be an overseas library.

I was wondering if the dots were in red or green? Also, is there a particular colour dot for books of different contents, like for instance, all the history books would be classified with a green dot, all the literature books would be classfied with a red dot and so on? What about the English books? Are they classfied in this way too? I would appreciate it if you could share. Thanks

I am sure that the letters that you mentioned would be the author's name in Hanyu Pinyin (for Chinese books).



No problem

Actually, the most frustrating catalogue I ever encountered was when I was at Oxford. The university library, the Bodleian, is a copyright library, which means it is entitled to one copy of every book published in the UK and Irlenad. It has in excess of 8 million items on 117 miles of shelving.

The catalogue, when I was an undergraduate, was no computerised. Instead, the catalogue was comprised of tiny slips of paper glued into one of 600 huge leatherbound volumes. The catalogue was alphabetical by author (not title or subject) only, and the 600 leatherbound volumes were divided into two parts; those books published before 1927, and those after!

Try finding a book on your chosen subject like that!

For some good information on how chinese books were catalogued and arranged in categories in ancient times in the library, you can refer to the online chinese source at http://ks.cn.yahoo.com/question/1407032003208.html

[I'll try to translate it if I have the time OR someone can help translate]

Yep it was an oversea library.
It was only in the Chinese section that had the color code. It was because most of teh staff that worked there couldnt read Chinese.

"red and Green" Lucky colors!
The dots were as many colors that they have everything from gren, red, yellow, orange, purple etc.
Then some of the dots had color bars beneath them when they ran out of colors.
Yes the color dots are fro each section like green for fiction, blue for science etc.

The English books was something entirely different.
For example a book called "China Na Fa" by Liu Jinsheng would have a code like 796.8155 LIU
Another example a book called "Basic Boxing Skills" by Floyd Patterson would have a code like 796.83 PAT
The number 796 is usualy where the sports and martial art books are. These two books I mention would be stack probably next to each other because the last two number (.8155 & .83) are pretty close. They are stacked in numerical order.

Plus there is also a bar code & bar code number sticker on each book. When you check out a book you give them your library card for them to scan and then they scan each library bar code number of each book with a laser. This way they know who borrowed the book and when the book needs to be return.
You can also request books from other public libraries by just sitting at home on your computer. You just go to their website punch in your library card code number and pick which books you want and to have them sent to the public library of your choice. When the library receives the books from the other library a computer calls your home to let you know your books has arrive at the library of your choice and you can go pick them up.



Wow. I have never heard of that! I cant imagine how difficult it would be to find library books without a computer database.

Someone could get lost in a library like that. (Maybe wont find them for a few days)....



Thanks General Zhaoyun. You (or someone else) dont have to translate the whole thing or anything like that.
Also its not a big priority so no pressure to do it.

Oh, I see. So the colour code would enable the staff to identity the book and which section it should be placed in.





Ah, the 3 letters at the back of the code would be the first three letters of the author's surname. My guess is that the last few numbers (.8155 and .83) is also due to the alphabetical order of the author's name too. L comes before P, so that's why "China Na Fa" has the smaller number code (.8155) than "Basic Boxing Skills" (.83)




It's the same situation here...just wondering, were/ are you a librarian?



So efficient How I wish that I could just have a staff in the library send over the books right to my doorstep without any transportation fees. LOL I must be dreaming



Actually it isn't that hard. You just need to know the name of the book, what section it is classified under and the author's name (the section is the most important of all, followed by the author's name and then the name of the book).

The solution to looking for books in the Bodleian in those days was to use the bibliography of one or more books that you knew. That allowed you to find some more books, and then you would use their bibliographies, and so on.

Actually, it is not such as bad technique to use even with computers, and I use it now to follow up on things I want to research.

The problem with just doing a search on a topic is that it can waste a lot of time. You end up with hundreds or thousands (in the case of the Bodleian many thousands) of books on the general topic, but not necessarily relevant to the exact thing you are trying to research. Computer searches are also no guide ot the quality of a book. Its citation in a bibliography often is a better guide.

Btw, most of the books in the Bodleian are not on open shelves but in stacks under the town, or even as far away as a disused salt mine! They are pretty good at pulling the books from the stacks though!

Oxford also has over thirty colleges, and together they would have another 800,000 books incunabula, and manuscripts. Until recently there was no central index of these books either, but that has been rectified, so all of these other works are theoretically available to recognised researchers.

I worked in a library. Although I never did the catalogueing of new books, someone else was assign to do that.


Hey I believe a number of digital (of digitalize paper books by scanners) are already on the internet. There isnt a whole lot of material yet over the net but from what I heard google and several libraraies (especially The Library of Congress) and Universities are working on building a giant data base of nearly all book printed. One of the main stumbling block has been over copyright issues.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_digit...ibrary_projects

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_library

Hopefully one day we can acess all the availiable books just through the internet alone and you'll never even have leave your home.

-----

Also thanks William O'Chee for your explanation.
Disused saltmine huh!

Did ancient China with its literati class have a central library that matched the one at Alexandria? And if so how many books did it have?
http://www.bede.org.uk/library.htm
The estimates for the LOA vary very widely, about 400,000 scrolls reputedly went up in flames in the 1st BC during one of Caesar's battles. An estimated 5000 people could be seated in its halls.

There are some good info at ancient chinese libaries at http://zhidao.baidu.com/question/37573828.html?si=1

According to the info, China was not the first country to have libraries. In 3000 BC, the Babylons were probably the first civilization to have libraries of some sort.

In ancient China, libraries were not known as "Tu Shu Guan 图书馆" (the modern chinese term for library). Instead, they were known by different ancient chinese terms such as "fu 府", “ge 阁”,“guan 观”,“tai 台”,“dian 殿”,“yuan 院”, “tang 堂”, “zai 斋”,“lou 楼” etc.

The Ancient Chinese Imperial (government) Libaries were known as follow:

Western Zhou Dynasty - Meng Fu 盟府

Western and Eastern Han Dynasty - Shi Qu Ge 石渠阁, Dong Guan 东观 and Lan Tai 兰台

Sui Dynasty - Guan Wen Dian 观文殿

Song Dynasty - Chong Wen Yuan 崇文院

Ming Dynasty - Zhan Shen Tang 澹生堂、

Qing Dynasty - Shi Ku Quan Shu Qi Ge 四库全书七阁


Private Libraries with some of the largest collection of books

According to http://zhidao.baidu.com/question/48917453.html?si=3, the largest chinese private libraries were:

Ningbo Tianyi Ge 宁波天一阁
Chengdu Wenjing Ge 承德文津阁
Beijing Wenyuan Ge 北京文渊阁

It's very difficult to estimate how many books there were altogether. However, chinese books/writing were generally organised according to canonical text (classics) known as "Dian Ji 典籍". Each canonical text can have up to thousands of books/volumes or more.

You can refer to list of chinese classics at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_classic_texts

Each chinese dynasty will have varying amount of books in its Imperial Library. I supposed the volumes accumulate as history progresses.

The Yongle encyclopaedia of Ming dynasty (which was kept only in Imperial Library) has about 22,837 scrolls and 11,095 volumes. It was the largest encyclopaedia in the world during that time and compiled by 2,000 scholars under a project led by Emperor Yongle.
For more info about Yongle encyclopaedia, refer to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yongle_encyclopaedia

The Qing dynasty Encyclopaedia Siku Quanshu, one of the largest collection of books in chinese history, had about 36,381 volumes .
For more info about Siku Quanshu, refer to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siku_quanshu

Thanks for the reply. Unfortunately I don't read Mandarin. Its hard to estimate how many books there were in Alexandria as well since each seperate work were divided in volumes of scrolls.

What I'm curious about is why China did not have a single large library the size of Alexandria. Some reasons that I'm thinking are-
- that the scholarly class preferred some independence and kept their stash of books local instead in some central repository
- the Chinese did not strive for large monumental architectures and the thought of having this huge library never even occured
- the difficult logographic writing system kept writing to a small select class and kept the quantity of available works low
- too many wars and unrest to make building a central library viable

Yes, all of the things you said about why China did not have a great central library are plausibel.

May I make the counter-argument? Many libraries grew out of the machinery of ancient government. Since China developed efficient taxation systems very early, these would have required repositories of tax and census information. The bureaucracy also issued edicts, and relied on precedent, and developed systems of laws. All of these could or should have led to a great central library.

This can be quite true, as scholar class tends to have private collection of books (thus private library)

The largest ancient private library in China was Ningbo Tianyi Ge 天一阁, which had up 70,000 scrolls.




China did not have a large public 'central' library until the early 20th century. That means they were not used to building very large 'public library' (achitecture) accessible to the public in ancient times.

The Largest library in ancient China was the Imperial Library, which contain vast amount of books and canonical texts. However, they were only accessible by officials and imperial family, and probably scholars.



It's not exactly the logographic writing system. It's the difficulty of classical chinese writing as well as a massive number of illiterates (peasants) in ancient China. Being able to read and write was largely limited to scholar-class who in turn became scholar bureaucrats.



This can be reason too!

I am asking the same question, I was just throwing items around for discussion.

But wouldn't the logographic system be exactly the difficulty of classical chinese writing?
The difficulty of rote memorization of thousands of characters just to achieve basic literacy is a hindrance. And maintaining that literacy is a chore as well. It becomes a system that discourages average people except the scholarly class to actually contribute any writing.

I hope you didn't think I was attacking you. Far from it!

I was merely indulging in throwing some ideas around, and think what you did was a good thing. We need to have an open mind about ideas, and encourage constructive, socratic discussion.

I think GZ's posting about the Imperial library was very interesting. Why did this not eveolve into a more open library like the Bodleian in Oxford, or some of the other great libraries of the West? Were or are the great Western libraries really that open? How easy was or is it for the general public to access the Bodleian, or those of Admont, or St Gallen, or the Secret Library at the Vatican?

What happened to the Imperial Library?

Don't worry about it, I simply meant what I said.

In the west, the church and clergy literally had a stranglehold over education and libraries until around the renaissance and afterwards the church still exerted a powerful role. In the east, a similar situation existed with the scholarly class having near total control of the academia and bureaucracy of the empire.

What does basic literacy mean in China? Understanding 1000,2000 characters? How many kanji characters are Japanese highschool students expected to learn? Did the Koreans or Japanese establish large centralised libraries of their own? And if so when did they do it?

Yes, there was a scholarly class in China which had a near stranglehold over academia and the bureaucracy of the Empire.

I am not sure that was so in Europe. Certainly there was a high proportion of the younger sons of the nobility in monasteries (some estimates in France in the 11th century put it as high as one in four monks), but the monateries were also relatively egalitarian for a fuedal society. This was certainly so after the Papal Reform movement and the Cistercians started to reinvigorate monasticism. Large numbers of men entered monasteries, and received an education, and they came from all walks of life. The fact that some Popes, who started their careers as monks, came from outside the nobility, is proof of this.

The other difference is that the great libraries were often attached to centres of learning which were outward looking - these centres such as Bologna, Paris and Oxford became universities. I am not sure that China ever developed the concept of a univeristy in the same way.

May be this is an explanation of the differences as well.

I don't think the large numbers of nobility had anything much to do with improving academic standards. They were mainly the younger sons who had little in the way of inheritance and made mediocre monks. The church and state basically shared power in medieval times and joining the orders was simply a means for the nobility to stay in power and administrate their own lands which were 'donated'. The only reason monasteries developed into full fledged centers of learning was because of competition from secular schools whereas they were content to churn out barely literate priests before.