The first libraries in China came into being during the time of the Shang dynasty (the sixteenth to eleventh centuries B.C.) as intellectuals known as the Shi (historians) and Wu (diviners) emerged from manual labor to special occupations for the creation and spread of culture. Among the documents that these occupations managed were "the country's statute books, genealogies of imperial kinsmen, issued notices and orders, and recorded important events and natural phenomena. For future verification and reference, they built storehouses to keep records in different media. To meet the needs of more and more complicated affairs and to ensure easy use, they began to collect and sort out those records according to chronological order and category. Thus, the earliest library in China came into being. The numerous kinds of media loaded with information and knowledge emerged in human society, resulting in the concepts of preservation and collection. Accordingly, the earliest libraries and archives were the result of conscious collection, process, coalition, and utilization."[1]
Early in the history of China, scholars had extensive private libraries, and all of the imperial dynasties constructed libraries and archives to house literary treasures and official records. These early private libraries acted more as book repositories than libraries. The actions of book repositories were often limited to basic functions such as collecting, preserving, and compiling books. There were four major types of book repositories in the Qing dynasty (1644 AD–1912 AD): Government, private, academy (shuyuan), and temple book repositories.[2] The first modern libraries, however, did not appear in China until the late nineteenth century; even then, library service grew slowly and sporadically. In 1949 there were only fifty-five public libraries at the county level and above, most concentrated in major coastal commercial centers.[3]
Following the founding of the People's Republic, government and education leaders strove to develop library services and make them available throughout the country. The National Book Coordination Act of 1957 authorized the establishment of two national library centers, one in Beijing (National Library of China) and the other in Shanghai (Shanghai Library), and nine regional library networks. Even so, libraries still were scarce, and those facilities that were available were cramped and offered only rudimentary services. Seeing the lack of libraries as a major impediment to modernization efforts, government leaders in the early 1980s took special interest in the development of library services. The special concentration of funds and talent began to produce significant results. More than forty Chinese institutions of higher learning also had established library science or information science departments. There were more than 2,300 public libraries at the county level and above, containing nearly 256 million volumes, and below the county level some 53,000 cultural centers included a small library or reading room.
At the end of 2004, China had 2,710 public libraries with a collection of over 400 million copies. There were 2,925 public libraries in China in 2011.[4] By the end of 2022, there were 3,303 public libraries in China.[5] Of the university or college libraries, the collections of Peking University and Zhejiang University libraries lead the nation.[6][7] The national library network also includes scientific research institution libraries, trade union libraries, plus libraries and reading rooms attached to government institutions, army units, primary and secondary schools, townships, enterprises and local communities.
^Hua, Xie Zhuo (1996). Libraries and the development of culture in China. Archived 10 March 2016 at the Wayback Machine "Libraries & Culture", No. 3/4, pp. 533.
^Zhang, Yao (December 2014). "The development of library and information science in China (1840–2009)". IFLA Journal. 40 (4): 296–306. doi:10.1177/0340035214541033. ISSN 0340-0352. S2CID 145394841.
^Zhixian Yi. "History of Library Developments in China" (PDF). IFLA. Archived (PDF) from the original on 8 July 2021. Retrieved 5 March 2021.
^"Statistical Communiqué on the 2011 National Economic and Social Development". stats.gov.cn. National Bureau of Statistics of China. 22 February 2012. Archived from the original on 6 August 2012. Retrieved 5 September 2012.
^National Data database at National Bureau of Statistics of China
^PKU Library Archived 24 April 2008 at the Wayback Machine
^ZJU Library Archived 13 September 2007 at the Wayback Machine
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