An ancient book collected by Rugao Library. [Photo/Nantong Daily]

Rugao, a city with a long history, is ranked first among its counterparts in Nantong, East China's Jiangsu province in the number of valuable ancient books it holds. Local library has recently used digital means to revitalize them.

Rugao Library houses 30,706 ancient books and has already digitalized over 200 ancient books.

"Digital ancient books can not only be preserved forever, but also can be used forever," said Associate Librarian Wu Zhiyuan. "Digitalization is very convenient in promoting traditional Chinese culture."

A staff member at Rugao Library scans an ancient book to upload the image to the library's database. [Photo/Nantong Daily]

Wu believes that digitalizing ancient books is the most efficient way to protect and inherit them and also an inevitable trend in collation of ancient books as scholars can carry out research without touching the valuable books.

Wu is discussing the next plan for digitalizing ancient books with technicians. He said that although the library has built an image database, identifying full text cannot yet be realized and they aim to build a full-text database for readers to view online.

The associate librarian added that digitalizing ancient books can popularize them among ordinary people and allow more people easier access.