Masters of restoration bring ancient books back to life

LANZHOU, Jan. 23 (Xinhua) -- With a pair of tweezers and a brush in hand, Yao Jiadi, a 35-year-old specialist in restoring ancient books, delicately navigated through damaged pages to mend the fragmented gaps.

On her table, pens, brushes, needles and other tools were neatly laid out, alongside ancient books in need of restoration. Some books were as stiff as bricks, while others were as thin as cicada wings.

With their unique techniques, restorers substantially extend the lifespan of ancient books and revitalize these cultural treasures. In 2008, restoration techniques for ancient books were listed as a national intangible cultural heritage.

For Yao, who works at Tianshui Library in northwest China's Gansu Province, ancient book restoration is both a conversation with the past and a race against time.

"Restoring ancient books is like performing a micro-level surgery on them. It requires preoperative diagnosis and planning," Yao said.

Before restoration, she and her colleagues would conduct comprehensive inspections and analyses of the ancient books. Based on the specific conditions of each book, they formulate targeted restoration plans to address various kinds of damage, such as insect or mouse bites, mold, and adhesion.

After over six years of work, she still vividly recalls the first ever book she restored. "There were not many pages in the book, but every page was covered in mud. Many pages were damaged, and the cover and bookmarks were stuck together," she said. After over a month of meticulous restoration, the ancient book now looks as good as new.

Ancient book restoration involves over 20 intricate processes. When encountering interesting content in the ancient books, restorers would often temporarily set aside their work to engage in a lively discussion.

Li Donghui, deputy director of Tianshui Library, is an inheritor of ancient book restoration techniques. He emphasized that ancient book restoration is not merely a mechanical task but a job that requires knowledge in related disciplines and a certain level of creativity.

With a background in fine arts, Li has a passion for bookbinding. He once restored a fragile ancient book from the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) by adding white rice paper between pages to protect them, a creative binding method.

"I cherish ancient books like I cherish my own children. The sense of responsibility to protect them and the sense of accomplishment in restoring them are the sources of my passion for work," Li said.

Since a national-level project to protect ancient Chinese books was launched in 2007, six catalogs of national precious ancient books have been released. About 13,000 ancient books were on the list, including five housed in Tianshui Library.

Today, ancient book restorers across China are exploring new ways to revitalize ancient books, with digitization emerging as a crucial means to balance preservation and utilization.

In recent years, Tianshui Library completed the digitization and reproduction of two precious ancient books, achieving the dual goals of preservation and utilization of the ancient treasures.