October 11th was an exciting day for Chinese exhibitors at the current 54th Frankfurt Book Fair. A symposium of "Chinese Culture in Europe" and a presentation of Chinese books and copyrights were held in the Concorde Room of Hall 4. This is the first time China has had the opportunity of displaying its cultural treasures at the annual book fair.

Five Sinologists were invited to the symposium. They each talked from different perspectives about Chinese book collections and Chinese literature research in European countries.

Ms. Dr. Nathalie Monnet, from the Division of Oriental Manuscripts at the National Library of France, pointed out that the earliest Chinese books to enter the country's Royal Library (now the National Library) were from 1668; one of them was a text on mathematics. As a specialist in Dunhuang studies, Monnet made particular mention of the thousands of manuscripts her library has collected from Dunhuang. She and her colleagues are currently working on a computer catalogue of these manuscripts and are planning to have them reprinted. The project is expected to be completed by 2005.

Mr. David Helliwell, director of the Department of Oriental Books at Oxford University's Bodleian Library, examined the reasons why Chinese books were collected in the past, present, and in the intervening centuries. The Bodleian Library opened its doors to readers on November 8, 1602, almost exactly 400 years ago. Chinese books have been part of the collection from the very beginning. Helliwell put forward an important question for the Internet age: "Will, what is here today still be here tomorrow? If it is not, how can a scholar be sure they ever really existed?"

After books have been collected, what do people do with them?" Mr. Dr. Johann-Michael Streffer from the State Library of Berlin, Germany, posed this question during his speech centring on "finding a gateway to the great hall of Chinese knowledge" in an effort to make clear to readers what has been written in these books. He is anticipating a new way of cataloguing Chinese books which will assist Westerners search these resources as quickly as possible.

Ms. Barbara Mittler, who works with the Sinologistic Seminar section at the Heidelberg University, continued on from Streffer's topic. She endeavored to explain to readers how many interesting thoughts and stories are contained within Chinese books. In addition, she said her seminars also make use of newspapers, journals, TV programs and even people's real life experiences to promote the Chinese culture. She presented a slideshow showing the "new female" image of the 1910s and told stories of a Chinese character created by famous writer Lu Xun, sending waves of laughter rippling through the conference room.

"There's no other country in the world which cherishes its collection of books more than China," Mr. Prof. Dr. Lutz Bieg, from the East Asia Department of the University of Cologne, began his speech. He proposed that China and Germany conduct cultural dialogues as well as political and economic exchanges. He said he was pleased to find Liao Zhai Zhi Yi (Strange Tales of a Make-do Studio) on the Internet in both Chinese and German.

After the symposium, China donated the German-edition copyrights of 50 categories of Chinese books to a German publishing house, 167 first-class Chinese books in 100 categories to the library of Heidelberg University, and 183 foreign language books in 150 categories to the State Library of Berlin.

The activities were sponsored by the General Administration of Press and Publication of the People's Republic of China, the State Council Information Office and China International Publishing Group (CIPG). Mr. Huang Youyi, vice-president of CIPG, presided over the symposium and the presentation ceremony.

(china.org.cn by staff reporter Li Jinhui, October 14, 2002)