'Doctors' for ancient books take residency at the National Library in Beijing

published: 2017-02-20 14:11:52 Ancient books are a significant recording of China’s time-honored history and culture. Unlike the “forever young” digital writings of today, they deteriorate with age, making their conservation process a challenging job. It has to be done in a scientific and standardized way, and one place to check the preservation work of age-old books is the National Library of China in Beijing. In the Ancient Books Preservation Laboratory located in one corner of the National Library, the technicians are buried in the work of repairing books dating back to hundreds of years.

With the help of brushes, hammers and microscopes, they are more like surgeons operating on patients.