One
Sky Terrace 29 Feb 2008
The oldest private library in Asia is One Sky Terrace (天一阁), and One Sky is in Ningbo in Zhejiang Province, the ancestral land of many Shanghainese. The One Sky was first established by retired Assistant War Minister (兵部右侍郎) Fan Qin (范钦), of the Ming Dynasty, who loved peace, and truly - not by words but actions - and who loved books, to the point that he collected over 70,000 volumes. But wars came to the Ming, and to the One Sky Terrace. Four centuries later in 1940s, there were only one fifth volumes remaining on the shelves. Still, with current volumes numbered at 30,000, One Sky houses one 200th of the total ancient Chinese books that China has. As one of the top ten greatest ancient terraces standing in China today, One Sky is ambicious, working on a pioneering project of establishing a digital version of the library with ancient books. It is expected that sometime in future we might be able to view its entire collections online.
(Source of news: 都市快报) Pre: A Precision
Saw Invented in China 10,000 Years Ago?
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