Page 10 - JOURNAL OF LIBRARY SCIENCE IN CHINA 2015 Vol. 41

Yongjin HAN / Thoughts on the study of library history in China 009

period of the Qing Dynasty. In Zheng Guanying’s Shengshi Weiyan Xinbian, it was believed that
Wenzong bibliotheca, Wenhui bibliotheca and Wenlan bibliotheca, located in Southern parts of
China, were originally built for the public book-lovers to read and use at that time. Hence, Wang
stated that “any scholar who loves ancient books can go to the bibliotheca to read and transcribe
the manuscripts”, which was set up as a regulation in the Qing Dynasty. As to private bibliotheca,
it was not unusual open to the public. Fang wrote in his book that Fan Wei, a locally-renowned
scholar in the Jin Dynasty, collected thousands of books and volumes, opened his private “study”
to nearby scholars, and even provided board and lodging for them considerately. C. C. Ye recorded
that Song Minqiu, a well-known bibliophile in the Song Dynasty, attracted hundred scholars and
bureaucrats to live nearby by his ten-thousand books so that they could conveniently read and
borrow books. B. Xu, a distinguished bibliophile in the Ming Dynasty, concluded that the reason
why wise men wrote books was to wait for other great minds who also loved books. He treated
those book lovers with tea and allowed them to freely read and transcribe. B. Xu even said “a
friend of book is a friend of mine”. M Xie recorded that Zhao Buyu, an owner of thousands of
Confucian classics in the Qing Dynasty once built a private bibliotheca, in which several studies
were prepared to satisfy the great daily reading demands of scholars and literati, and anyone who
came to borrow and read books would be guided and served by a specific supervisor (whom could
be regarded as librarian at that time). Moreover, bibliothecas, like Sun Yiyan’s Yuhai Pavilion,
Zhou Yongnian’s Jishu Loft, Guo Ying’s Gongdu Cabinet, and Lu Xinyuan’s Shouxian House
were filed in historical materials to be opened for the public. Although some bibliothecas, like Du
Xian’s in Tang Dynasty, Fan Qin’s in Ming Dynasty etc. were not opened for the general public,
the attribute of openness cannot be ignored by us.
Considering the above examples, ancient bibliotheca is practically and theoretically granted
with two main functions: storage and usage, which are the most important attributes of a “library”
although without “modernized functions” like “automatic”, “socialized” and “people-oriented”
(Liu, 1983, p.2) in modern libraries. In short, current issues, such as openness, service quality,
service range, service mode, readers’ identification, intellectual property ownership, cannot alter
those intrinsic characters of ancient bibliotheca as a library.
From the viewpoint of the transformation of functions, both ancient bibliothecas and modern
libraries have worked suitably according to various social demands in different historical periods.
In general, the functions of a library can be divided into two categories: basic and social. Basic
functions include collection, organization and usage of enormous volumes of documents, while
the social functions are to preserve human heritage and knowledge, carry out public education,
deliver scientific information, as well as maintain intellectual resources (W. C. Wu, 2004). It
is worth noting that the basic functions of a library are determined by the attributes of library,
which in turn reflect the essential characteristics of the library (W. C. Wu, 2004). However, the
social functions of the library are dynamic due to the development of society and the change of
social demands. Hence, the basic function of ancient bibliothecas was to collect, manage and use