The National Library of China is the country's top restoration clinic for precious ancient texts. Nearly 20 "book doctors" work at the library, committed to making the valuable documents survive longer. "The fragility of the books leaves little room for the introduction of modern machinery. The methods we use today are almost the same as we used in the old days," says Zhu Zhenbin, 52, who has worked at the library for the past 34 years. The newly established National Museum of Classic Books is a part of the National Library of China, where about 2.6 million copies of old books are stored. "Varieties of paper and binding methods used in ancient Chinese books make the process of restoration more complicated than Western ones," he says. "It is like treating individual patients. It doesn't matter if we do the work slowly but it will be problematic if we lower our standards to accelerate our schedule," Zhu says. "What we do is to make them survive longer." Workers admit that relatively recent issues, such as air pollution, keep popping up. The restoration project also requires people with interdisciplinary knowledge, including in chemistry, the fine arts and ancient Chinese language. The museum will formally open to the public in September.
Author tells Chinese audiences that writers simply have to 'keep on writing' to be successful
The 2014 Edinburgh International Book Festival opened on Saturday under the theme "Let's Talk".
South Africa's Lauren Beukes returns to urban United States and the hunt for a serial killer in her new novel, Broken Monsters.
Young Woman Singer, a portrait of Peng Liyuan, attracted much public attention when her husband Xi Jinping became China's president almost three decades after she modeled for painter Jin Shangyi.
Making traditional portraits is not only a family business, it symbolizes a way of life for old Haikou. Han Cuiqiong is determined to stop it from slipping away in the rush toward modernity, as Raymond Zhou and Huang Yiming find out in Haikou.
A new generation of Japanese architects is scoring success by reinterpreting the past.
Dolce and Gabbana show their haute-couture collection in their native Italy, and as Chen Jie discovers in Capri, the designers know plenty about high glamour and living la dolce vita.
Singer-songwriter Wang Feng made a pathbreaking move last week. While pumping up a crowd of more than 60,000 fans with his concert Storming at the National Stadium in Beijing, the 43-year-old rocker became the first in China to broadcast his concert online in real time.
At first, Elizabeth Roxas-Dobrish, a former star of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, the New York-based modern dance company, wasn't sure about the outcome of her recent visit to Beijing.
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Raymond Zhou
Op Rana
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Huang Xiangyang
Chen Weihua
