Library And Non-physical Cultural Heritage

Non-physical cultural heritage is a means of memory, a way of cultural living, and a method for the transmission and communication of knowledge, which coexists with human society. It is an ethnic and folk cultural property created by people with their hearts and hands, an important means to express the rich and colorful life of humanity, a carrier for people to place their immeasurable feelings, hopes and demands, and a highly popular and democratic non-literal work. Due to the historical and cultural limitation the library, being a public brain and a social device of the human memory, a proliferating device of the human knowledge, over a long period of time failed to pay attention to non-literal cultural tradition and knowledge, which took place and developed in vast fields and mingled in the whole public life; and clue to the restriction of the methods of preservation and technical means, it was not able to record, preserve and spread the living knowledge either. With a clarification of the concept, features and functions of the knowledge of non-physical cultural heritage and based on a fairly thorough understanding of the nature, task and function of the library, the paper makes a correlation between library and non-physical cultural heritage, and works out a comparatively reasonable frame of all major links for the library to participate in rescuing, preserving and carrying forward non-physical cultural heritage. It points out that the difference between the organization of non-physical cultural heritage and traditional documents will bring a series of reform to the work in the traditional library.Therefore, by exploring the knowledge of non-physical cultural heritage this paper discusses the feasibility and operationability for the library in collecting, protecting and carrying forward the knowledge of non-physical cultural heritage. In the course of exploration, this paper sticks to the stand, viewpoints and methods of Marxist dialect materialism. By comprehensive application of the knowledge and research means of numerous disciplines including philosophy, sociology, anthropology, history, culturology, folklore, linguistics, literature, communication, documentation, theory of bibliography, bibliology, psychology, pedagogy, archive and museum work, it explores the happening, development and features of non-physical cultural heritage, and expounds the importance for the library to preserve and popularize the knowledge of non-physical cultural heritage. And based on a massive investigation and with the use of classification, comparison, analysis and induction, it makes a trial research on how to preserve and sift non-physical cultural heritage in the library, how to spread and carry forward the excellent ethnic and folk culture, and how to have the methods of transmission andcommunication of the knowledge of non-physical cultural heritage being properly used in library service.The paper is divided into six parts.The first part discusses the concepts, characteristics, functions and types of non-physical cultural heritage. In view of the richness and fuzziness of the cultural heritage, it determines the necessary position between library functions and the knowledge of non-physical cultural heritage. Under the widely covered background of anthropology, sociology and culturology, it classifies and abstracts the features and functions of non-physical cultural heritage and reveals its profound connotation. And it gives a positive explanation of the historical and practical meaning of the action of rescuing and protecting non-physical cultural heritage.The second part discusses the status quo of the rescue, protection and research on non-physical cultural heritage at home and abroad. It points out that the research on non-physical cultural heritage got off to a late start in China, resulted in limited disciplines involved in scope and simplistic research method and angle applied at present, a system of discipline has not yet been formed. The stagnation in the guarantee and protection by law and policy has consequently weakened the awareness of protecting non-physical cultural heritage in the society, so it is urgently needed to popularize the awareness and adopt stronger measures.The third part discuses the significance for the library to participate in the rescue and protection of non-physical cultural heritage. It explores the acquisition of non-physical cultural heritage, stressing on the selectivity of memory and reading, analyzing the limitation of objective knowledge, i.e. "One can't express all his ideas in one book and no words can fully deliver one's thinking". It points out defects existing in the library in regard of preserving and communicating the physical and living knowledge from the people. The society is developing and changing, so is the function of the library. It is hoped that the library as a growing organism is a self-organizing system and is able to make self-adjustment, and adapt to the needs of the ever-developing society and humanity for the library. Meanwhile, through dialectical analysis of the documentation of the cultural information of non-physical cultural heritage, it shows that documentation is not the whole meaning for the rescue and protection.The fourth part, through an analysis of various knowledge service institutes and based on the analysis of the fundamental structure of the integration of cultural information resources in China, discusses the role played by the library in rescuing and protecting non-physical cultural heritage, and suggests that the library should adopt the attitude of "cultural consciousness" in performing the mission of a library.The fifth part discusses the characteristics of the organization, syslematization and research of the knowledge of non-physical cultural heritage. It is considered that the idea on the nature of the "class phenomenon" such as library, dictionary and database, delineated and described with knowledge aggregation can be served as guidance for the construction of databases on the subject of non-physical cultural heritage. It expounds the characteristics of the collection of documentary resources of non-physical cultural heritage. And by comparing the construction of database resources on the subject of non-physical cultural heritage and the traditional library, it draws the difference between the resource aggregation of non-physical cultural heritage knowledge, which takes "cultural phenomenon" as its essential character and the resource aggregation of traditional local documents, which is featured in "locality". In view of the selection and determination of knowledge elements of non-physical cultural heritage, it adopts core elements of DC metadata to define and describe knowledge elements of non-physical cultural heritage on worn carrier with severe loss of bibliographic information, and attempts to use the "system" of hypertext to explain the text character of the knowledge of non-physical cultural heritage, which is highly individualized and expressed in multi-ways. Based on the recognition of the public to the contents and ways of expression of the "works" of non-physical cultural heritage, and analyzed from the angle of sociology, history and anthropology, it puts forward to substantiate bibliographic authority database in the light of "knowledge coverage ratio", and poses specific suggestions for replenishing subject thesaurus (database) and strengthen the retrieval function of bibliographic records. And with the use of the ideas and knowledge of sociology, history, folklore, documentation, theory of bibliography, bibliology and linguistics, it makes an analysis and summary of the internal features of the knowledge elements of non-physical cultural heritage.The sixth part discusses the knowledge receiver and service of non-physical cultural heritage, stressing on the space character of knowledge receiver from the angle of cultural sphere theory.With a fully understanding of the deep connotation that non-physical cultural heritage is both a way for the public to acquire knowledge and a way of their living, it reflects on the right to knowledge liberty, knowledge equality, and knowledge leisure in the library.In the study of service, it analyzes the feature of the service with non-physical cultural heritage databases, which is the connection between the inheritor and the receiver, and a process of promoting, guiding and explaining. The reasonable crux of the methodology for transmitting and communicating the knowledge of non-physical cultural heritage is dissected, and they are applies to the study of carrying out diversified service in the library, and impelling the library become a lively, social institute that safeguards knowledge system and a place where "experts can do research and the public canacquire knowledge". Meanwhile, it raises the predicament concerning intellectual property right that the library confronts in disseminating intellectual products of non-physical cultural heritage.