Former site of Beiping Library

Former site of Beiping Library

The former site of the Beiping library, Wenjin building, the main building of the branch of the National Library of China, is a national key cultural relic protection unit of the people's Republic of China.

In December 2017, it was selected as the second batch of Chinese 20th century architectural heritage.

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Architecture

In 1931, the new Beiping Library in Wenjin Street (now the branch of the National Library) was completed. Wenjin street new library was one of the most advanced libraries in the Far East at that time, with a total cost of more than 2.4 million yuan, all of which came from the refund of gengzi indemnity. It covers an area of 76 mu. The architectural appearance is gorgeous traditional Chinese palace structure, and the internal facilities are all the most advanced western equipment at that time Compared with the library of Congress of the United States, some scholars have recorded that "the toilets on both sides of the central hall are paved with small hexagonal tiles, which can't be seen from the outside, but the windows can be seen from the inside. They are all American, which is more exquisite than the Beijing Hotel.".

Beiping library was originally formed by the combination of the former branch library of Beijing Library and Beijing popular library. Before the merger, both were founded by the Ministry of education of Beijing government in 1913. In May 1926, the branch library of Beijing library was changed into the first ordinary library and the popular library into the second ordinary library. In July 1927, the two libraries were merged and renamed as the first ordinary Library of the capital. The site of the library is the former Hanlin academy workshop at No. 22, Neifa Hutong, Xuanwumen. In November 1928, it was taken over by the Education Bureau of Beiping special city and renamed the first ordinary Library of Beiping special city. In 1932, the Bureau of education was merged, and the library became a social Bureau. In 1933, it was renamed the first ordinary Library of Beiping city. During the period of Japanese puppet rule, it was called the first general library of Beijing. On the eve of the liberation of Beijing, it was also known as the Beiping municipal library. During this period, the book reading center (which was renamed the third ordinary Library of Beijing, the revolutionary library and the Zhongshan Library) established in Zhongshan Park in 1917 was merged to become the branch of the city library and the children's library. Before 1949, the library had a collection of more than 100000 books. The classification method was Liu Guojun's Chinese book classification method, and the borrowing methods were internal reading and external borrowing. At the beginning of the reading room, there are public reading room, news reading room and children's reading room. There are two ways to borrow books: organ guarantee and deposit

library

At that time, the Beiping library had eight departments, namely, the book purchasing Committee, the Compilation Committee, the general affairs department, the interview department, the compilation department, the reading department, the rare books department, the Jinshi department, the map department and the Periodical Department. The collection of books included more than 400000 ordinary books in Chinese, Manchu, Mongolian, Japanese and Western languages; more than 30000 ancient books in the song, yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties; and more than 30000 rubbings in Jinshi There are more than 8000 maps, more than 8000 maps and more than 30000 books of more than 6000 kinds. Including the "Sikuquanshu" and other precious collections.

It is worth mentioning that at that time, the Beiping library was open to the public free of charge. The public did not need to pay any fees. They only needed to get the house number with the nature of library card at the entrance of the library every time to borrow books from the library, but they did not provide lending. In addition, the library has strict requirements on the clothes of the readers who enter the library. The readers must wear Chinese style long shirts or western style shirts and trousers and dress neatly before they can enter the library, otherwise they will be blocked out of the door of the library.

change

On January 2, 1942, the General Administration of education of the North China Government Affairs Committee took over the National Peking library and renamed it the National Beijing Library. After the end of the Anti Japanese war in 1945, the library was renamed National Beiping library.

After the founding of the people's Republic of China, the national Beiping library was renamed National Beijing Library on March 6, 1950, and Beijing Library on June 12, 1951, becoming the only national library of the people's Republic of China. In 1987, the new Beijing library was completed on Baishiqiao Road (now Zhongguancun South Street). The building was also rated as the top ten buildings in Beijing in the 1980s, and its name was inscribed by Deng Xiaoping. On December 12, 1998, Beijing library was renamed as the National Library of China. On April 16, 1999, Jiang Zemin, then general secretary of the CPC Central Committee and President of the state, inscribed the name of the library.

Address: 7 Wenjin Street

Longitude: 116.3852609184

Latitude: 39.923029200722

Chinese PinYin : Bei Ping Tu Shu Guan Jiu Zhi