Page 12 - JOURNAL OF LIBRARY SCIENCE IN CHINA 2015 Vol. 41

Yongjin HAN / Thoughts on the study of library history in China 011

pre-Qin Dynasty. Throughout history, it is virtually impossible to study the innate developing
regulation of Chinese librarianship without an appropriate historical periodization. After all, a
scientific periodization can clearly show the interactive relationship among librarianship, politics,
economics and culture within a certain time.
Due to the fact that Chinese library history cannot be separated from Chinese history, the
periodization of library history should be based on the periodization of Chinese history. As early as
1959, Z. H. Xie (1959) divided the history of Chinese librarianship into the following four periods:
the Feudal Period (from the ancient times to the Opium War in late-Qing Dynasty), the Old
Democratic Revolution Period (1840-1919), the New Democratic Revolution Period (1919-1949),
and the New China Period (since 1949). Furthermore, Lai (2009) divided Chinese librarianship
into thirteen periods as follows: the Zhou and Qin Dynasty, the Han, Wei-Jin, South and North
Dynasties, the Sui, Tang and Five Dynasties, the Song and Yuan Dynasties, the Ming and Qing
Dynasties, the Opium Wars, the Westernization Movement, the Hundred Days’ Reform, the decade
before 1911 Revolution, the reign of the Northern Warlords, the ten-year Civil War, the Anti-
Japanese War, and the Liberation War.
Additionally, some scholars have made the division in consideration of the development of
Chinese books and librarianship. For example, Z. H. Xie (2005), based on the types of Chinese
books, divided Chinese librarianship into six periods as follows: the usage of bamboo slip and silk
(from the Spring and Autumn period to the Western Han and Eastern Han Dynasties), the period of
writing books (from the period of Three kingdoms and Jin Dynasty to the Sui and Tang Dynasties),
the rising period of printing books (from the Song Dynasty to the Yuan Dynasty), the developing
period of printing books (from the Ming Dynasty to the Qing Dynasty), the rising period of
mechanical printing (1840-1911), as well as the developing period of mechanical printing (1912-
1949). T. S. Huang (1994) believed that the periodization of historical development of the library
should adhere to the essential transformation. He proposed three periods: the self-preservation and
self-usage (from the Shang Dynasty to the beginning of the twentieth century), full-open library
(from the beginning of the twentieth century to 1957), and network library (from 1957 to date).
Apparently, both types of periodization discussed above are based on the identification of library
services and application of modern technology. T. N. Wu (2006), from the aspect of knowledge
organization, believed that there should be four periods: storage period of document (from the
Yin Dynasty to the early Western Han Dynasty), systematization period of document (from the late
Western Han Dynasty to the twenties of the twentieth century), organization period of document
(since the twenties of the twentieth century), and knowledge organization period (currently in
preparation).
However, it is not appropriate to bluntly adopt the existing periodization systems, which can be
viewed as problematic. These periodization systems either rely too much on the regime changes
rather than the inherent regulation of library development, or exclusively concentrate on the
librarianship itself without any consideration of the social context. This paper believes that there