By the end of 2005, China had 2,762 public libraries with a
collection exceeding 480 million copies. Of university and college
library collections, those of Peking and Wuhan universities lead
the ranks. The national library network also includes those of
scientific research institutions libraries, trade unions,
government institutions, the army, primary and secondary schools,
towns, enterprises and local communities.
The National Library, with a collection of 25 million volumes,
is the largest in Asia and has the world's largest collection of
books in Chinese. Adjacent to the Purple Bamboo Park in west
Beijing, the library has three stories underground and 19 stories
above ground. Among its huge collection are more than 3,500 ancient
tortoise shells carved with Chinese pictographic characters, 1.6
million volumes of ancient thread-bound books, some 1,000 volumes
of documents from the Dunhuang Grottoes, 12 million
foreign-language books and magazines, and dozens of electronic
databases.
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The library began to accept submissions of official national
publications in 1916, becoming the main national database, and
began to accept domestic electronic publications in 1987. It is
also China's ISSN (International Standard Serial Number) Center and
Network Information Center. The library has formed a digital
library alliance with 90 others across the country to promote
China's digital public information service.
The second phase of the National Library?-- China Digital
Library?-- began in late 2004 and is scheduled to be completed
and put into operation by October 2007. The project is expected to
satisfy book storage demand for 30 years to go. The Digital Library
will make the National Library the world's biggest Chinese
literature collection center and digital resources base, as well as
the most advanced information network service base in China.
The Shanghai Library is China's largest provincial-level
library. Of its collection, the over 1.7 million volumes of ancient
documents are the most valuable and representative, including
25,000 titles of rare books in 178,000 volumes, many being the only
surviving copies anywhere. The oldest document dates back nearly
1,500 years.