A Special Exhibition of Chinese Rare Books, an important component of the celebrations of the country's fourth Cultural Heritage Day, is offering free entry to visitors. The Exhibition opened at the National Library on 14th, June and will run until 13th, July. It is the largest exhibition to show rare ancient books since 1949.

The Exhibition includes bamboo and wooden slip documents of the Pre-Qin Period (before 221BC), Documents of Hand-Copied Books Period (about from AD 220 to AD 960), rare books of the Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties (from 11th to 19th century), Buddhist documents, manuscripts of Ming and Qing dynasties (from 14th to 19th century), local chronicles, rubbings, chorographic maps, as well as old books of ethnic minorities in China. It shows great efforts China made in preserving rare ancient books.

Many of them, such as Song Dynasty version of "Annotation of the Classics of the Spring and Autumn Period provided by Library of Yunnan University, are on show for the first time. Some rare books, not on ‘Catalogue of National Rare Books in China’, also debuted on the exhibition. “The most valuable one is one volume of Yong Le Da Dian (Great Encyclopedia of the Yongle Reign) that was returned from overseas”, according to the staff of the National Library. The volume is said to have been well kept. And a project for bringing more Chinese ancient books back home is also under plan. The Exhibition is organized by China's Ministry of Culture and during the exhibition, reading salons, forums and other events will also be held.

By Guo Changdong