Abstract:

“We should inherit and promote predecessors’ cultural heritage rather than pursuing personal interests.” This idea was presented by Gu Tinglong, a famous Chinese bibliographer, in the Proposal on Founding Ho Chung Library, and has been widely praised in the academia for more than 80 years, then has become the spiritual pillar and the model among library practitioners. The text of this document is considered to be the final version in the Collected Works of Gu Tinglong (also seen in the new edition of Gu Tinglong’s Complete Works), and academia believe that the original manuscript no longer exists. This year, on the 120th anniversary of Mr. Gu’s birth, we re-examined the collection of documents and the relics donated by Gu Songfen (Gu Tinglong’s son) in Beijing in 2011, and surprisingly found the original manuscript of the Proposal. Then we determined the final version based on the perspective of genetic criticism and through carefully and repeatedly considering, gathering opinions of various people, revising drafts many times. The revisions, margin notes and sticky notes in this manuscript are of great research value. This paper studies the author’s original intentions and the deep opinions of Ye and Zhang’s, and explores the process from the revision to the publication, in order to provide further promotion for the academia to Gu Tinglong’s library career thought and the initial situation of the library’s establishment.