NCL Seeks to Fill Collection Gaps

In 1949, the National Central Library was moved from mainland China to Taiwan, but only 140,000 rare books and some 20,000 other books from the original collection were brought over at that time. In the 43 years since the end of the Ching dynasty, acquisitions have been largely restricted due to political factors and, since the relocation of the library to Taiwan, limited funding as well. Consequently there are still some 100,000 titles published between the Ching period and 1954 that are not represented in the library collection. Budget, staff, and regulatory limitations have created a deficit of over 200,000 Chinese publications published since 1911.