At the Hunan Library in Changsha, Hunan province, Shi Wenlan is busy restoring a series known in English as The Collection of Ancient and Modern Books, edited during the reign of Yongzheng Emperor of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), who wrote the preface.

During the past 25 years, the 50-year-old restorer has brought back to life about 100,000 pages of ancient books, sometimes from nothing but flaky pieces, helping ancient knowledge to be retained, read and appreciated by people today.

Shi has great faith in this little-known job: "Ancient books are non-renewable, precious documents, and important achievements of Chinese civilization. Restoring them is to rescue cultural relics that are dying out."