BEIJING, Aug. 7 -- It is not crying wolf to say that ancient books and documents require immediate and proper protection.

    Last week, 57 units, including the National Library, were designated as sites on a trial basis for the preservation of such paper antiques - a clear sign of the country's desire to prevent their further deteriorating.

    What we call guji refers to books and documents either printed or hand-copied before 1912. They also include paintings and calligraphy works.

    As it is hard to prevent them from becoming worn out, being eaten by worms or decaying because of moisture, repairing such antiques has become a skill-demanding technique.

    A lack of highly-skilled hands in recent decades has made it almost impossible to mend many books and documents. That some libraries do not have storehouses that meet the requirements for their preservation has also contributed to their deteriorating conditions.

    A lot has been done to digitize such antiques and many have been made into films in recent years to preserve what is recorded in them.

    This is not enough. The loss of the original forms will mean their irretrievable dilapidation.

    These 57 units, mostly libraries and museums, will conduct a national survey to find out how many such antiques we have and they will have a clear-up list of the most valuable ones by July next year. Then they will categorize them into guji of different levels for protection.

    This is indeed the right thing to do. When we get to know how many such antiques we have and how their conditions are, we will be able to make specific plans for their protection.

    For example, we can't expect to mend all the ancient books and documents that need repairing. But we can repair the most rare and valuable ones on the list, and improve the conditions of storehouses to make sure those that cannot be timely repaired be better preserved.

    It was decided that the top-level guji must be sent to the national center for repairing. A decision was also made that guji may be sent to other storehouses for preservation in cases conditions of the original storehouses are not good enough for their preservation.

    After the government's new measures, we have reason to believe more and more guji will be better preserved.

(Source: China Daily)