Riding the wind of rebirth

"Didn't we mention before that Yan Gusheng treated cultural figures like Zhang Daqian and Yu Youren during the War of Resistance against Japan and sponsored Zhang Daqian to complete the Dunhuang mural copy exhibition?" Gu Lao said, "His daughter Yan Zhenwei is also a painter. She first studied under Zhang Xiacun, and later, because of this connection, she was able to become a disciple of Zhang Daqian. So, the descendants of the Yan family are among the few female disciples in the first generation of direct descendants of Dafengtang."

"She knew you had collected several remarkable works by Zhang Daqian, and her first invitation was to have the opportunity to view them."

"How did she know that I collected Zhang Daqian's works?"

"She would definitely pay attention to her master's work, right?" Old Gu laughed. "Just like the progress of your master's 'Collection of Rhymes with Commentary', if others don't know, how could you not pay attention?"

“That’s true,” Zhou Zhi said with a smile. “I guess she wanted to see the large splashed-ink paintings, but those paintings have already been sent to the Hangzhou Overseas Chinese Hotel, where a floor will be dedicated to displaying works by modern and contemporary painters in the future.”

"I'm not entirely sure what exactly they want to see," Old Gu said with a smile. "But I think it's not unreasonable for them to just look at the paintings."

“That’s right. Given the Yan family’s contributions to phonetics, this request is not excessive at all,” Zhou Zhi said. “What are the other two requests?”

"The other two requirements are not high either," said Mr. Gu. "Because the printing blocks stored in Zhaojue Temple have been burned, the first edition series stored in Chengdu Library is the best version that has survived. Reprinting involves splitting and rebinding, and after preliminary discussion, we decided to carry it out in the Ancient Book Restoration Institute of Chengdu University Library, since it is now the best ancient book protection and restoration center in the country."

"This is no exaggeration," Zhou Zhi patted his chest and assured, "If Sichuan University claims to be second, the Palace Museum and the National Museum of China wouldn't dare to claim to be first."

This is no exaggeration, because many of the devices, equipment, and reagents used for restoring ancient books were invented or introduced from Zhouzhi. The National Museum of China and the Palace Museum are involved in too many cultural heritage protection projects, and they do not have the same freedom to use funds as Zhouzhi. The Ancient Books Research Institute of Sichuan University has the advantage of being close to the source and has the help of Zhouzhi, which is a "benefactor". Its conditions are among the best in China and even the world.

“However, Zhenwei said that talent is the most important thing,” Gu Lao said. “So she said that the leader of this project team, at least the team responsible for disassembly and subsequent reconstruction, must be you.”

"Huh? Was it Director Yuan's idea? Or Dean Jiang's suggestion? Don't they think I have enough problems already?"

“You’ve misunderstood them,” said Old Master Gu. “It was Shi Xiang who recommended them. Zhenwei is also from the Capital Academy of Painting and has a good relationship with Quanyou. He has seen the paintings by the Four Masters of the Six Dynasties that you restored and knows that you restored the Dragon Canon of Fawang Temple.”

"There's nothing I can do about it." Zhou Zhi could only spread his hands and chuckle sheepishly, "How could I dare not give face to Elder Wang and Mr. Yuan? Bringing out these two big shots is unnecessary, really unnecessary..."

"The main thing is the third matter. Zhenwei feels it's an 'unreasonable request,' and he's a little embarrassed about it," Old Gu said with a smile.

"Tell me, this is a major event in our field of phonetics. Everyone else has agreed to contribute free of charge. If they have any requests, we will try our best to accommodate them."

"She suggested adding the 'Phonology Series' to your 'Digital Library' project so that more people can access it through online channels."

"That's it?"

"That's it."

"What do you mean by asking for something so unreasonable?" Zhou Zhi laughed. "It's something we'd love to do, and it's not difficult at all. With the powerful capabilities of the current graphic digitization system, converting photocopies into digital documents is basically a piece of cake with the powerful capabilities of the new font library."

The digital library uses Hanwen professional font library, and now it has been upgraded.

The font tool will "collect elements" from the photocopied images of ancient books, mainly collecting the shapes of the character roots. Then, they can be freely combined to form a digital font that is closest to the font of the ancient book.

Next, special parts of the ancient book, such as borders, punctuation marks, red silk lines, and annotation marks, will be collected. These special characters and texts will be combined to simulate the original appearance of the ancient book pages on the computer screen.

Finally, there's the background, which includes elements like paper texture and color. These elements are then output through a digital library program, resulting in ancient texts that are essentially identical to photocopies but stored digitally.

Compared to photocopying the original images, ancient books in this digital format have a much smaller data volume, making them very suitable for efficient storage and network transmission.

Of course, the greatest function of digitization lies in retrieval, which is also the foundation of machine learning.

Clover Group has been deeply involved in this field for a long time, and now with a powerful nonlinear computing matrix, handling these tasks is incredibly easy.

The current bottleneck lies in the generation of photocopies. Shuda Library has introduced three new high-speed, high-definition scanners, and the Institute for the Preservation of Ancient Books has arranged three shifts so that the machines never stop, even when people are resting. There is still a huge amount of data waiting to be entered.

“I’ll arrange for our own stuff to be prioritized,” Zhou Zhi said, taking full responsibility. “If all else fails, we’ll add two more machines and set up a dedicated digitization team just for this series.”

"If you agree to everything, come with me to the Shu University Library tomorrow to meet Zhenwei, and also the relevant personnel for this project," said Professor Gu.

……

The current Sichuan Provincial Library was completed in 1982. Compared to the later, more magnificent and spacious new library, this library, located on Zongfu Road, is still somewhat compact. Everything is designed to meet functional needs, and comfort is basically out of the question.

When it comes to lighting, facilities, and the comfort of the reading area, even the Shuda University Library is miles ahead.

However, the Sichuan Provincial Library has an impressive history.

The library's predecessor was the official book bureau, which was established in the 21st year of the Guangxu Emperor's reign by Sun Jiading of the Zongli Yamen (Foreign Ministry).

In the third year of the Xuantong reign, Liu Jiachen, the Provincial Education Commissioner, petitioned to establish a library, proposing to use the Gongyuan Hall and Qingbai Hall as its site.

In 1912, the provincial library was established with funding from the administrative office. However, by 1927, the library was struggling to maintain its operations and was transferred to the management of the Chengdu Municipal Government.

The following year, the provincial library was downgraded to a municipal library.

In November 1929, the Provincial Department of Education sent a letter to the Municipal Government proposing to bring the library under provincial management. In the same month, the Municipal Government replied, refusing the Department of Education's request to take it back. The Provincial Library ceased operations thereafter.

In 1936, the provincial library made its second preparation for establishment, but it was put on hold due to the outbreak of the War of Resistance against Japan.

In 1940, the Provincial Library was officially established. The library was located in the former Zhongcheng Primary School building on Chengshou East Street, which was also the former Qing Dynasty city magistrate's office. The three-story Western-style building had two book stacks that could hold more than 40,000 books, three reading rooms that could accommodate 150 readers, and two other rooms in the building that served as offices for the SC Provincial Education Center and the SC Provincial Gazetteer Office, respectively.

After several relocations and expansions, it finally reached its current size.

Because of the arrival of Mr. Gu and the descendants of the Yan family, the curator Liu Yijie personally came to welcome and introduce them.

"To date, our collection comprises over three million books, including 650,000 ancient books, 5,000 rare editions totaling 60,000 volumes, 995 of which are national-level masterpieces, and 220,000 volumes of Republican-era documents." Liu Yijie spoke of the collection with great familiarity. (End of Chapter)