IT was the brainchild of Emperor Qianlong: “Siku Quanshu,” or “The Complete Books of the Four Imperial Repositories.” Qianlong, who sat on the imperial throne during the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), set himself the task of preserving and restoring Chinese culture.

    The encyclopedia, which began to be compiled in 1773 and took 10 years to be finished, contains vast records that reveal how people lived in bygone days: their aspirations, yearning, worries and day-to-day trials.

    Six more copies were compiled later. They were distributed to important libraries, but later some were burned, some were pillaged in the wars and rebellions that plagued the nation during years of upheaval, and some were damaged while being relocated.

    The copy that Qianlong personally read survived and resides today in the Palace Museum in Taipei. The other three surviving copies are kept in Beijing, Lanzhou and Hangzhou.

    Today, accessing the hand-written copies is a rare privilege for a few scholars. But the complete encyclopedia may be viewed online. Digital Heritage Publishing, a Hong Kong company, developed an electronic version that is available through subscription.

    As China studies have gained momentum globally, the electronic Chinese encyclopedia has drawn subscriptions from 794 universities and research institutes in 20 countries.

    The number is continuing to grow with new subscribers just recently from Belgium, New Zealand, Israel and Malaysia.

    Gabriel Yu, the publisher, has invested HK$50 million (US$6.45 million) in the digitizing effort. He hired 200 programers to create a pool of 80,000 Chinese characters that can be recognized and typed on computers.

    The technique of optical character recognition converts scanned images of the handwritten texts into computer-encoded data entries. It allows electronic searches and common word processing features: highlighting, bookmarking, copying and pasting.

    Dai Longji, curator at the Macao University of Science and Technology, says the digital “Siku Quanshu” is popular among professors and students.

    Steve Ching, librarian at the City University of Hong Kong, will soon open a study center dedicated to ancient Chinese texts. There, Ching promises a quiet space and an engaging atmosphere that he hopes will encourage professors and students to sit and savor the works of ancient sages.

    (SD-Agencies)