A treasured future

Race against time

The display boards aligned along the sides of the hallway contain introductions to the exhibition in general and the intangible cultural heritage projects featured in the exhibition. Visitors can watch documentaries about the projects and the inheritors either on the digital screens or on their smartphones by scanning the QR codes.

Tian Miao, deputy director of the library's social education department, introduces the project, which was launched by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism in 2015 to document the inheritors of the nation's intangible cultural heritage.

"This is such a special and essential project. When it was launched, there were more than 3,000 national-level inheritors in China, but 400 to 500 have already passed away. And the average age of the rest is over 70," Tian says.

Each year, intangible cultural heritage protection centers around the country submit lists of the inheritors, and the library, which is entrusted with offering academic support and examining the final products, selects around 200 inheritors for the centers to record.

Apart from the library staff, experts in intangible cultural heritage and documentary filming are also invited to guarantee the quality of the recordings, before the approved video documentation is archived by the library.