The National Library of China yesterday launched a month-long festival to encourage the public to make full use of its terrific book and information resources.
Apart from a book retrieval system which allows patrons to use the Internet to look for and borrow books, the library will also run a lecture series featuring Chinese classic literature, Confucianism, historical figures and intellectual property rights protection.
By the end of 2001, the national library had collected 23.11 million books, making it the largest book warehouse in Asia. So far it has digitized nearly 200,000 books in text, audio-visual and image forms, according to library sources.
(China Daily December 9, 2002)
