Under the direction of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the People's Republic of China, China-CEEC Libraries Union was established in October 2018 in Hangzhou, China, with its secretariat permanently set in Hangzhou Public Library. More than 60 libraries from China and CEEC, on a voluntary basis, seek common progress made on the principle of "equality, mutual benefit, inclusiveness and openness". 

The Very Collection in My Library aims to introduce treasures kept in each member library to audience in China and Central and Eastern European countries and bring ancient books into the limelight, through of which people could enhance their understanding of cultures and histories of other countries.

This episode here is presented by Chen Jun, the director of Nanjing Library, introducing you the rare ancient book Libu Yunlue.

(The Very Collection in My Library is updated on Cooperation between China and CEEC official website http://www.china-ceec.org/ and CHINA CULTURE.org https://cn.chinaculture.org/.)

Nanjing Library will hold the 3rd China-CEEC Curators' Forum of Libraries Union in October, 2023. 

As the saying goes, one page of the Song edition equals to 50 grams of gold, which shows that the Song edition is extremely valuable, but what you may not know is that the Song edition is generally the block-print edition of the Southern Song Dynasty. However, there are less than 20 types of carving copies in the world since the Northern Song Dynasty. The Northern Song Dynasty version of the book "Libu Yunlue" in Nanjing Library is an authoritative reference book for the imperial examination in the Song Dynasty.

"Libu" (The Ministry of Rites in feudal China) in the title of the book refers to the name of the national institution that manages the imperial examination, "Yun" refers to the rhyming words in poetry, "Lue" means abbreviation, which explains that the number of rhyme words selected has been abbreviated. "Libu Yunlue" is a rare and important literature for the study of people's language in the Song Dynasty that has great academic and cultural value.

After expert identification, it is believed that this copy of "Libu Yunlue" is the earliest surviving version at home and abroad, and it is the only existing copy of the Northern Song Dynasty. It is earlier and more complete than the one kept in Japan, and its cultural value is immeasurable. It is considered "a major discovery of rare ancient books in China over the past 200 years".

In 2013, Nanjing Library collected this book through bidding, which was highly recognized and actively supported by domestic authoritative experts in the identification of ancient books, which can be said a grand event with the protection of Chinese ancient books and cultural inheritance.