ZHEJIANG LIBRARY ¡¡

One of the earliest provincial public libraries in China, Zhejiang library was expanded in 1903 on the basis of its predecessor---- Hangzhou Library that was first built in November 1900.  Now the library has four localities----three in Hangzhou, namely the newly built library on Shuguang Road, a branch library on the Solitary Road for the collection of ancient Chinese books, and another branch library on the College Road, and one in the town of Nanxun of Huzhou, i.e. Jiayetang Library.  At present, the library has a collection of more than 4 million books, among which 835,000 are ancient Chinese books, and over 300,000 are books in foreign languages.  The Chinese and foreign newspapers and journals exceed 20,000 kinds. Except literature in paper, literature recordings, films and discs are on the increase.  The most precious collection is of course ¡°the Complete Library of Four Branches of Books¡± housed in Wenlan Ge Library.  Other precious ancient Chinese books are sutra texts copied by scholars of the Tang Dynasty, the block-printed editions and copied editions of the Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties, and the block-printed editions from Japan, Korea and Vietnam.  Besides Chinese newspapers and journals, Zhejiang Library has also paid great attention to the collection of English, Japanese, Russian, German and French newspapers and journals.  Since 1978, it has established relationships with libraries in other countries like America and Japan for exchange of books, newspapers and journals.  The newly built library covers an area of 30,800 square meters equipped with advanced facilities.  Now there are 22 service desks open to the public, serving the readers throughout the province.  The kinds of services include reading in the library, borrowing books, consultant service, exhibition of books, newspapers and journals, and releasing of scientific and technological information.  Now the library is carrying out the digital library project.  It has web site on the Internet on which readers can search books in the catalogues.