China starts new phase of microfilming program

Citation

(1998), "China starts new phase of microfilming program", Asian Libraries, Vol. 7 No. 10. https://doi.org/10.1108/al.1998.17307jab.010

China starts new phase of microfilming program

China starts new phase of microfilming program

Since 1985 China's government has sponsored an extensive microfilming effort to preserve its written history. The National Library of China and some 30 provincial and municipal libraries have taken part in this program to film rare books, aged newspapers and periodicals. To date the program has filmed almost 63,000 reels, including 3,227 newspaper titles in 18,454 reels; 13,649 periodical titles in 17,558 reels; and 27,850 rare book titles in 26,798 reels.

The Chinese National Microfilming Center for Library Resources, located in Beijing, manages the effort, called the National Microfilming Program of Documentation in Public Libraries. A new phase of the Program began in 1996. The Center is now overseeing the filming of several types of aged and deteriorating materials. They include ordinary (as opposed to rare) books and other publications, documents in minority nationality languages, foreign-language documents, maps, rare material copied from epigraphic inscriptions on ancient bronzes and stone tablets, revolutionist documents, local annals and documents, and newspapers and periodicals published after 1949.

The Center has been building up its own information management system under the operating platform of Windows 95. By the end of 1998 it intends to put into service a bibliographic database of microfilms produced by public libraries. It also hopes eventually to digitise the microfilm on demand.

For more information on the microfilm project or bibliographic database contact: Li Jian, China National Microfilming Center for Library Resources, 7 Wenjin Street, Beijing 100034, China. E-mail: tsgswzx@public.bta.net.cn