Approved by the State Council of the People’s Republic of China, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism announced the sixth batch of ‘National Catalogue of Precious Ancient Books’ on 13 November 2020 in Beijing. Fifteen Chinese ancient books from the CUHK Library’s Rare Book Collection have been included in the final list. The selection criteria of the National Catalogue of Precious Ancient Books are extremely strict - listed materials must be of scholarly value, historical and cultural significance, and they should be handwritten or printed before 1912 in the form of classical binding. This is the first time that Chinese ancient books from a Hong Kong academic library collection have been selected as national precious books.
The CUHK Library has developed a distinguished Chinese ancient book collection in the past five decades. The rare book collection consists of over 1,100 titles in more than 16,000 volumes of Chinese classical titles in traditional stitched binding. The collection’s scope ranges from the Yuan Dynasty (1260-1368) to the end of the Qianlong period (1795) of the Qing Dynasty. The selected 15 Chinese ancient books for the National Catalogue are rare and unique editions, including 6 titles donated by the Bei Shan Tang Foundation in 2008. Notable titles among the collection are Yi Benyi Fulu Zuanshu (易本義附錄纂疏) of the Yuan Dynasty, Qinghu Xiansheng Wenji (青湖先生文集), Ji Gu Dian Shuoyuan Ji (紀古滇說原集) and Zongxuan Xiansheng Wenji (宗玄先生文集) of the Ming Dynasty, and Shuying (書影), Zhongcheng Ji (中丞集), Yihai Jianwen (乙亥見聞), and Nenger Zhai Yinpu (能爾齋印譜) of the Qing Dynasty. The editions are comprehensive, including woodblock printing, multi-colour printing, manuscripts and handwritten copies. To share these national treasures with the public, as well as for dissemination of knowledge and the preservation of cultural heritage, all these books were digitized and available for open access on CUHK Digital Repository.
