rare Chinese books

[lostinblue]

http://www.hcl.harvard.edu/news/articles/2...igitization.cfm

 

 

¨COne of the most extensive collections of rare Chinese books outside of China will be digitized and made freely available to scholars worldwide as part of a six-year cooperative project between Harvard College Library (HCL) and the National Library of China (NLC).

 

The six-year project will be done in two three-year phases. The first phase, beginning in January 2010, will digitize books from the Song, Yuan and Ming dynasties, which date from about 960 AD to 1644. The second phase, starting in January 2013, will digitize books from the Qing Dynasty, which date from 1644 until 1795. The collection includes materials which cover an extensive range of subjects, including history, philosophy, drama, belles letters and classics.

[knloregon]

Really cool ! And just think, maybe sometime in the next 100 years, there will finally be Western scholars who have had the cultural training to put these great works in their proper historical and social context---with the assistance of their Chinese colleagues.....

[Guest jin979]

pity normal people wont be able to read them

[lostinblue]

pity normal people wont be able to read them

Is this because the average person cannot read the script. I find this to be great because over the centuries many great writings have been destroyed. By being over the internet many copies can be made all over the world and not lost forever if the original is destroyed.