Old books, new tools

Chen says digital resources make it easier to search and access large bodies of information.

New books continue to arrive as well. The library works with eight publishers and receives around 10,000 newly published books each year through those arrangements, Chen says.

Alongside books and databases, the library is adding tools for students to work with data and artificial intelligence.

Liu Yaqiong, a librarian with the library's collaborative services center, says the library's data sharing and reading space is designed to give students the computing power to turn ideas into projects.

Its high-performance area is equipped with graphics processing units with 24 gigabytes of memory, supporting tasks from 3D modeling and video editing to model training and inference.

"We hope students can have the freedom to use computing power," Liu says.

The library has also made AI tools available to students, who can use them for assisted reading, writing and building personal knowledge bases.

Some have used AI to animate parts of ancient paintings, turn an academic paper into a summary and mind map, and work on video production.

But Liu says giving students the tools is only part of the job. "We also need to improve students' AI literacy," she says.

The library has organized lectures and micro-courses on AI, student-led sessions for sharing AI tools, and digital-intelligence education salons with scholars and technology entrepreneurs. Topics range from practical skills and innovation to AI ethics.

Additionally, through the library's "class librarian" program, each undergraduate freshman class is assigned a librarian who joins its WeChat group and stays connected with students throughout their university years.

For freshmen, that can mean library orientations, resource introductions and visits. As students progress, the support shifts to discipline-specific resources, database retrieval, academic norms and paper writing, before becoming more individualized for juniors and seniors.

The program now covers more than 110 undergraduate freshman classes and about 10,000 students each year, with more than 10,000 class-group interactions and consultations and more than 100 lectures and visits, according to Liu.

"We want to provide more targeted services according to students' needs at different stages," she says.

For ancient books, the physical object remains important.

Zhang Yanxia, a librarian involved in ancient-book restoration, says the restoration team grew from one person in 2021 to seven today. Five members have more than 10 years of experience.

The team handles different levels of restoration according to the condition of each book. About 3,000 volumes a year receive emergency treatment, around 400 receive more focused treatment, and about 40 to 50 undergo full disassembly and restoration.

"Emergency restoration on site is like an emergency room in a hospital," Zhang Yanxia says.

The approach is to intervene only as much as necessary to stabilize a book while preserving its original material.

The restoration team also works with the Chinese book history course. Restorers demonstrate traditional binding techniques and guide students in making thread-bound books themselves.

The cooperation has continued for six years, and international students take part each year.

For Zhang Yanxia, keeping those books in use is part of preserving them.

"We hope more people can come into contact with these books," she says. "Preservation is not simply about keeping them safe. It is also about allowing them to continue to be used.