Tselo, director of the Tibetan Ancient Documents Restoration Center in the autonomous region of Tibet. Since it was founded, PALDEN NYIMA CHINA DAILY The Tibetan Ancient Documents Restoration Center of theTibetan Ancient Documents Restoration Center of the Tibetan autonomous region has completed a huge amount of work.
The center was established in 2015 as a branch of the Tibet Ancient Documents Preservation Center, which is affiliated with the regional library of Tibet.
The Tibet Ancient Documents Preservation Center of the library started a region-wide census on old books in 2009 to get a clear picture of the region's preservation of old documents, says Tselo, deputy director of the center.
More than 18,000 volumes of Tibetan ancient documents were surveyed from more than 1,160 public and private institutions all over the region, which are involved in the collection of ancient documents.
Since 2018, Tselo says his center has also assisted in document preservation work at the Potala Palace and the Norbulingka Park. They completed the census and registration of 4,739 volumes of old documents from the Potala Palace and 1,757 volumes of old documents from the Norbulingka park.
Our center has published a series of books related to the preservation of Tibetan Old Documents in recent years, and we have also published the statistics of the census from the old documents in the form of a catalogue, providing an important resource for people to learn about the status of their collection and distribution in our region, says Tselo.
The Outline of Introduction to Tibetan Ancient Documents and The Catalogue of Tibetan Old Documents, two monographs published by the center, have become textbooks for colleges in China and are vital references for academics.
The center has been working on digitizing and the use of old documents in recent years, in addition to the Tibetan ancient documents census and preservation and restoration projects.
Since 2018, the library has been working on the digitalization of part of its collection of ancient Tibetan documents, and it has completed work on a total of 390 volumes of such documents. Anyone can browse the digital information when they come to the library.
The digitalization of old documents is an effective measure to address the phenomenon of valuing the collection but neglecting the use of old documents, says Tselo.
The center expects to complete the digitalization of more than 30,000 pages of old Tibetan documents by the end of the year.
The center has helped various work units improve the quality of their old documents storage.
When we were conducting the census of ancient documents across the region, we found that many institutes with poor storage conditions had poor storage conditions, and they failed to properly protect these rare old documents, he says.
They can't guarantee that these rare old documents can be well preserved without getting damaged or lost, and such problems are highlighted especially in border areas and small temples. The center has been proposing the issue of special funds to carry out projects that can improve the storage conditions of these institutes.
It has worked with 17 such institutes as of the end of last year. Such efforts have contributed to the safer storage of old documents, he says.
Our center has been working on building a modern cataloging system for its collection of old documents, because the traditional way of cataloging and reference is very difficult.