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BEIJING, Jun 10, 2006 (Xinhua via COMTEX) -- The Chinese have to spend a millennium to fix the country's 10 million rare and dilapidated antique books if no measures are taken to intensify the current efforts to save them, an expert said Saturday.
"We now have no more than 100 professionals specialized in ancient book restoration in the country. If we depend only on them, we have to wait for one thousand years to have the 10 million ancient books brought back to good conditions," said Zhan Furui, curator with the National Library of China.
"You can not tell how many of these ancient books will be subjected to dilapidation due to environmental pollution and poor preservation conditions during the years to come," he added.
According to Zhan, one third of the 30 million ancient books existing in China are damaged to some extent by water, fire, worms, mice, or paper decay.
The less than 100 book restoration professionals are more than 40 years old on average, and most of them learned the skills from apprenticeships.
To ensure a regular supply of qualified "repairers," China is mulling to set up ancient book restoration and protection majors in some universities, according to Zhan.
Currently, only the Mochou Technical Secondary School in Nanjing, capital of Jiangsu Province, has such a major.
Another problem China has to resolve is to improve the conditions to preserve the vast number of ancient books as part of its cultural heritage, Zhan added.
He said, the National Library, boasting the best preservation facilities in the country, only have some one third of its 2.6 million precious ancient books, including the dilapidated scrolls from the Dunhuang Grottoes and the centuries-old Yongle Encyclopedia, kept in constant temperature and humidity warehouses underground.
"The other 1.64 million books are kept in natural conditions," he said.
For the rare ancient books in local libraries and collectors, the situation is even worse, as many are sunbathed in muggy air during in scorching summer time, said Zhan.
The Ministry of Culture has launched an unprecedented project this year, including a ten-year national census on the number of ancient books and their locations in the country, in order to better preserve the paper-based materials as long as possible.
Copyright 2006 XINHUA NEWS AGENCY.
