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

 

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

 

Zhang made the remarks at a forum on cooperation between China and Egypt on ancient book protection techniques held recently in Nanjing, capital of East China's Jiangsu Province.

 

China has a large number of ancient books and many are in very rough shape. About one third of them are in urgent need of repair, Zhang said.

 

The chemical alum was used in China's traditional technique of repairing ancient books, but it actually caused acidification, Zhang explained.

 

Considering the shortcomings of the traditional method, experts only repaired the broken ancient books in most need, which in turn has caused a backlog of books that need repair, Zhang said.

 

"We are now borrowing the techniques of Egypt which they use to repair the wall paintings of the pyramids." said Dai Xueyan, an organizer of the forum.

 

China will send students to Egypt to study conservation technologies, and Egyptian experts will be invited to China to train more professionals in the field, Dai said.

 

"We hope to obtain the most advanced relic repair techniques," Dai added.

 

(Xinhua News Agency April 3, 2006)