The Reformers’ Library Science Thoughts During Late Qing Dynasty And Early Republic Of China

The late Qing dynasty and early Republic of China（1840-1928） is a historicallyprofound period of time. In such a transition period, dynasty alternated, and the situation wasunrest. Meanwhile, the ancient China initially marched toward modern civilization. Duringthis period of time, the new and old thoughts conflict and communicated with each othervigorously. Gradually, the part of traditional Chinese culture which did not accommodate tothe development of productive forces and the advance of society anymore waned, at the sametime, the new ideology started to form and seek for its survival ways. The ideology oflibliotheca in the feudal society which lasted for thousands of years was inevitably impactedand modern western library ideology was introduced to China. It combined with theparticularity of Chinese culture and formed Chinese library ideology little by little. In theprocess of the formation and development of this ideology, the scholarly reformers played animportant role. Ever since the First Opium War, the reformers who had advanced ideas hadstarted to translate and introduce western materials and books and bring new-style latter-daylibrary to China. Later on, there were also pioneers who travelled to western countries inperson and made record of the most authentic first-hand material of latter-day library. Afterthe preparations and pre-publicity within the country was launched, the reformers started thepractical activity of constructing latter-day libraries and the exploration and elaboration of thetheory of Library Science, which scored considerable achievement and contribution. Inaddition to that, they paved the way for the development of Chinese latter-day library careerand library science thoughts. This essay will unfold in time sequence to trim and makecomments on the reformers’ contribution and exploration of different periods of time, inorder to make a systematically inductive summary of the sprout and development of ChineseLibrary Science Thoughts during late Qing dynasty and early Republic of China.