Exhibitions(Vol.39 No.2)

Rescuing National Documents—An Exhibition of Rare Books Acquired by the NCL between 1940 and 1941 The National Central Library (NCL) collection of rare books and documents, comprises a large number of high-quality volumes from the Song, Yuan, and Ming periods, was built up through considerable effort. During the years of 1940 and 1941, when China was engaged in the fight against Japan, the library sought and acquired rare books in private collections in war-torn Shanghai. This highly ambitious and significant effort aimed to prevent important books and documents from falling into foreign hands. Chiang Fu-tsung, then the director-general of the NCL, led a Document Preservation League comprised of several learned people from Shanghai and Hong Kong in conducting the exhaustive search. All of the correspondences, official documents and work reports from the effort have been preserved to the present day.