China will borrow Egyptian techniques used to preserve the murals in the pyramids to conserve China's ancient books.

"China's ancient books may be destroyed by acidification within 100 years if repair techniques are not improved," Zhang Zhiqing, director of the rare book department of the National Library of China, said in an interview last Wednesday.

Zhang made his remarks at a forum on cooperation between China and Egypt on ancient book conservation held in Nanjing, the capital of east China's Jiangsu Province.

China has a significant number of such books and many are in a poor condition, Zhang said. Approximately one-third of them were in urgent need of repair, he added.

The chemical alum was used in China's traditional method of repairing and preserving ancient books but that actually caused acidification, Zhang explained.

Because of the shortcomings of the traditional methods only those books in most need were repaired. This resulted in a backlog of books requiring repair, he said.

"We're now borrowing the techniques of Egypt they've used successfully to repair murals in the pyramids," said Dai Xueyan, an organizer of the forum.

China will send students to Egypt to study conservation techniques and Egyptian experts will be invited to China to train more people in this field of expertise, Dai said.

"We hope to gain an insight into the most advanced relic repair techniques available," Dai added.

(Xinhua News Agency April 3, 2006)