Aerial views of Changshu's downtown.[Photo provided to China Daily]

Cao Peigen, a research librarian and researcher on the culture and history of book collecting at Changshu Institute of Technology, said that during the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties more than 300 book collectors resided in Changshu, representing more than a tenth of the collectors across the country. Ye Dehui, an expert on the Qing Dynasty, paid tribute to the city in a preface to the book Changshu Gu Family Stone House Bibliography, saying: "A town's achievement in book collecting put it at the summit of the nation."

Anecdotes on collecting books, passed on through families and to others, abound in Changshu. One legend has it that a particular species of bookworm winds its way through the forest of books it inhabits looking for fairies. If it finds and devours fairies three times it gains qi (energy) and is possessed of maiwang, or grand outlook.

In the Ming Dynasty, a man named Zhao Qimei, of Changshu, had a special liking for the word maiwang, so he changed the name of his father's library "Songshi (pine and stone) Room" to "Maiwang Pavilion" to express his passion and love for books.