Pages of history

Occasional events are also hosted in the space. At a recent event, visitors were offered the opportunity to browse through a few books, produced in the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) with woodblock printing technique, under the guidance of the library staff.

The library was established on the foundation of Suzhou Library's department of ancient books.

Jie Ye, deputy director of the Suzhou Library, says the old library boasts a collection of more than 160,000 ancient books, including more than 20,000 precious volumes, and 124 book titles listed in the national directory of precious ancient books.

The library has also been carrying forward its digitalization project since 2007, so far having transformed 1,496 ancient books into digital formats.