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CHENG Huanwen & LIU Jiaqin / The development of library science in China in an international perspective 031

the unique cultural development process, cultures of other countries did have a great impact on
Chinese culture. Nevertheless, Chinese culture was good at absorption and assimilation, and it
did not easily change its developmental path. For example, the Indian Buddhism spread widely in
China, but it developed with Chinese characteristics since different sects were founded in the Tang
Dynasty. At the same time, Chinese Buddhism also had little influence except on East Asia. In
other words, the cultural development in China was relatively in a closed loop.
There was a traditional system of document, collection and classification in ancient China. It
is an independent system which had little influence on other countries except the neighboring
East Asia. Meanwhile, knowledge of document, collection and classification in other countries,
especially the Occident also had little influence on China. As a result, Chinese traditional scholar
system focusing on documents, catalogs and editions is a fairly independent system which was
spread in a limited way and not influenced by other countries.
After the Opium War, the closed door of China was forced open. The world was quite different
from that in the Emperor Qianlong period (1736-1796). From that time on, the traditional ideas of
document or library began to be internationalized and underwent several periods.

2.1 Introduction of Western library concepts (1840-1898)

The Opium War in 1840 forced open the door of China. The Chinese began to have a look at the
world and proposed “learning from foreigners to compete with them”. Learning from the West, the
Chinese founded newspapers, schools, libraries and museums. Social education was carried out to
inspire the people and revitalize China.
Western modern libraries are different from traditional collections of governments, private
institution, schools and temples in ancient China. The most distinguishing characteristic is that
western libraries are public service and social educational institutions, while the traditional Chinese
collections are privately-owned institutions that are closed and exclusive. Accordingly, the western
library concepts of public, opening, equality and sharing began to spread in China. From then on,
the Chinese began to adopt western library concepts and advocate establishing western libraries.

2.2 Introduction of Japanese library concepts (1905-1911)

The spread of the concept of the public library was a lengthy process. The concept was put into
practice when preparing for constitutionalism in late Qing Dynasty (1905-1911). The Capital
Library and public libraries at the provincial level began to be founded. As the Qing government
learned from Japan in preparing for constitutionalism, the concept of public libraries also learned
from Japan (Pan&Cheng, 2014). The word “图书馆” (library) used in late Qing Dynasty was a
typical example. After the Opium War, there were various translations of the word “library” and
“bibliotheca” in Chinese, in which “藏书楼” and “图书馆” were mostly used. Book collecting