Thousands of volumes of precious ancient books and rare editions of Chinese writings, once stored deep in large libraries, are expected to be repaired, photocopied and put on the market.

According to a national project jointly launched by the ministries of Culture and Finance, the Chinese government will allocate 80 million yuan (9.6 million US dollars) in four years starting from this year to the ancient book renaissance.

Du Weisheng, of the National Library of China, said currently China has over 45,000 titles of ancient books that have only one copy and 4,100 with only two copies.

Most of these rare books, including the Yongle Encyclopedia book series dating back 600 years and the nearly 2,000-year-old sutra from the Dunhuang cave "are suffering from worm-eating, mold and paper deterioration and sorely need preservation," said Du.

Chinese Vice-Premier Li Lanqing recently told a conference to launch the project to protect the invaluable heritage from Chinese ancestors.

Du, who has been engaged in book preservation work for nearly two decades, said the library has so far repaired nearly 60,000 titles of such books over the past five decades, which had to be kept carefully in the depository and only a restricted group of people were allowed access.

He said the project would greatly benefit researchers and scholars.

Du's library was designated as the sponsor of the project and has selected 32 titles of books from the Tang (618-907) to the Song dynasty (1127-1279) to be photocopied for libraries that do not have these collections.

These photocopied books bear their original look and are bound by thread. Each title has 500 copies and more are expected to be published in the coming years.

(Xinhua News Agency December 28, 2002)