STORY: Ancient book integration project underway in China's Shandong
DATELINE: July 11, 2023
LENGTH: 00:02:03
LOCATION: JINAN, China
CATEGORY: CULTURE

SHOTLIST:
1. various of Shandong University
2. various of the office of the Global Integration of Ancient Chinese Books project
3. SOUNDBITE 1 (Chinese): SHAN CHENGBIN, Head of cataloging team, Global Integration of Ancient Chinese Books project
4. various of the team
5. SOUNDBITE 2 (Chinese): WANG CHENGLUE, Head of selecting and compiling team, Global Integration of Ancient Chinese Books project

STORYLINE:

An ancient book integration project is underway in east China's Shandong Province to discover ancient Chinese literature overseas and provide more literary support for Chinese cultural construction and international cultural exchanges.

The Global Integration of Ancient Chinese Books project, spanning a decade, was launched by Shandong University in 2017.

SOUNDBITE 1 (Chinese): SHAN CHENGBIN, Head of cataloging team, Global Integration of Ancient Chinese Books project
"Our project aims to investigate the global collection of ancient Chinese classics, compare them with those preserved in the Chinese mainland, and bring copies of those not available here to the mainland. Our team is cataloging each of the books held overseas, like doing 'household registration' for them."

Shan added that at present, 157 teams including 425 people around the world are participating in the cataloging work.

So far, they have contacted about 2,000 overseas libraries, and signed cooperation agreements or reached cooperative intentions with over 400 of them.

The team has found more than 1,900 ancient books overseas which are missing in the Chinese mainland, and reproduced 1,600 of them.

Some of the replicated Chinese classics will be selected and published.

SOUNDBITE 2 (Chinese): WANG CHENGLUE, Head of selecting and compiling team, Global Integration of Ancient Chinese Books project
"Our team mainly selects and compiles books with high academic and literary value, considering what categories and versions of books are absent in the country. We plan to edit 200 works."

Xinhua News Agency correspondents reporting from Jinan, China.
(XHTV)