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202 Journal of Library Science in China, Vol. 7, 2015

taken control of all the libraries of Shanghai and book resources suffered severe damage. Another
report—Chinese education survives (Oct. 1, 1938) summarized the losses of Chinese colleges and
universities prior to October of 1938 (Sun, 2011). Despite distinct viewpoints, all these accounts
from China, Japan, and independent third parties have documented the fact that Japan plundered
books from China.
Personal experiences recorded in manuscripts and diaries can verify the accuracy of news reports
because they report more details on specific events. In wartime, Chinese scholars wrote articles
to reveal Japan’s crimes as well as the quantity of books being plundered. In 1932, He Bingsong
wrote Beginning and end of Japanese bombing the Commercial Press (Y. S. Liu, Xie, & He, 1990).
In 1939, Gu Yuxiu wrote The losses of Chinese education and culture since Anti-Japanese War
broke out in the Monthly Notice of Current Affairs; and in 1940, Chen Lifu wrote The situation of
Chinese culture and education since Anti-Japanese War broke out three years ago in The China
Quarterly (Meng, 2007b). Many contemporary celebrities from the cultural community also
accused Japan of its destructive activities by writing down what they had seen and heard. Feng
Zikai wrote a series of articles in 1938 after his study room was destroyed by Japanese including
Give my Yuanyuan House back, Mourn for Yuanyuan House, Say goodbye to Yuanyuan House.
In 1939, Yu Dafu wrote The disaster of books in Singaporean Sin Chew Daily so as to express
sorrow for his book losses (Yue & Zhao, 2004). In 1946, Xie Wanying wrote The treasures can
not be taken away. And in this article she compared her book collections to eternal treasures even
though they had been plundered by Japanese (Xiao, 2000). The activities of Japanese army burning
and expropriating books may also be noted in diaries, correspondence, and memoirs of Japanese
soldiers and military correspondents. For example, a Japanese soldier named Azuma Shiro (2000)
recorded his experiences of taking calligraphy and paintings of ancient Chinese artists in Wuxi
into his memoirs. What is more, foreign journalists, embassy staff, and missionaries in China also
witnessed the unfolding disaster, and their experiences can be testimonies as well. Victor Robert
Lytton was sent to make investigations of China by the League of Nations. His diaries and letters
to his family mentioned the miserable situation of universities and the Commercial Press (CP) after
being bombed and burnt by the Japanese in Shanghai (Zhu & Jin, 2002).
News agencies, publishing institutions, schools, libraries and museums all produced records
documenting Japanese actions. In the case of the Commercial Press, a detailed account of the event
and the statistics of destroyed books were documented right after being bombed, and The course
of the Commercial Press in Shanghai being destroyed by Japanese was published without public
release (Meng, 2005). As another example, the Bulletin of the Library Association of China had
successively reported information about domestic book stores since March 1926 (P. Y. Li, 2011).
After the war broke out, more reports were added which reflected book losses across China (see
Table 1). Compared with statistics of post-war libraries, we can make a rough estimation of the
losses of books and literatures during the war.