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Yongjin HAN / Thoughts on the study of library history in China 013

divides the development of modern Chinese libraries into eight periods: the period of the Opium
War (1840-1860), the period of the Westernization Movement (1861-1894), the reform period
in the Qing Dynasty (1895-1900), the period of the Late-Qing Reforms (1901-1911), the early
period of the Republic of China (1912-1927), the mid-term of the Republic of China (1928-1937),
the period of the Anti-Japanese War (1937-1945) and the period of the Liberation War (1945-
1949). The development of the contemporary libraries, based on the combination of national
history and the history of library development as well as the political, economic and technological
contexts, can be divided into six periods: the period of creation and early development (1949-
1956), the period of inflectional development (1957-1965), the disastrous period of the “Great
Cultural Revolution” (1966-1976), the rapid development in the reform and opening-up period
(1977-1989), the period of modernized transformation (1990-1999), as well as the period of great
development and prosperity (2000-2009) (Xiao, 2015).

4 The history of the Chinese library in the perspective of social and historic
development

The history of Chinese librarianship development should be considered as a specialized history,
which focuses on a particular subject or field within the general history, that is, the study of the
development of a particular research subject which needs to be performed with a full consideration
of the social and historic background. This project, “History of the Chinese library”, can be
regarded as both specialized and generalized history, which integrates ancient history and current
development at the same time. Specifically, this project investigates the causal links among
different development periods of Chinese libraries. This study particularly emphasizes on the social
influences in each period, and aims to explore the innate interactive relationships among library,
politics, economy, technology, culture, education. Only on the basis of good understandings of the
cause-consequence relationships between these social factors, can we provide useful indications
and reference to Chinese library development in the future.
Meanwhile, it is necessary to note that the development of the Chinese library is an integral
component of the international development of libraries in each historical period, particularly in
the modern and contemporary periods. The development of Chinese libraries has not only been
influenced by libraries all over the world, but also affected other libraries outside China through
the development of indigenous concepts and characteristics. Therefore, the articulation of the
History of the Chinese library primarily focuses on two main areas: the holistic development of
Chinese society, and the development of the libraries all over the world.
From the perspective of the holistic development of Chinese society, the primary and
predominant factor is the political ideology of the ruling class and the mainstream culture. On the
one hand, the alternation and change of dynasties and ruling classes, along with wars and chaos,
were closely related to the rise and fall of the Chinese library development. The lost works of