Pic story: Yuan Dongjue repairs ancient Chinese books in Sichuan

Yuan Dongjue divides stuck pages of a book over 180 years, in Sichuan Provincial Library in Chengdu, capital of southwest China's Sichuan Province, Dec. 21, 2017. Yuan Dongjue, a 70-year-old expert of ancient books repairs, has kept working on ancient book repair and conservation since 1983 in Ancient Books Repair Center of Sichuan Provincial Library. In her 34 years career time, Yuan has repaired about 200 valuable ancient Chinese books, some of them could date back to 1,000 years ago. The repair work consists of over 10 different steps. To repair only one piece of paper, it takes one to several hours, some even takes days of time. In Yuan's magic hands, those damaged books are renewed. Repaired book could be read, exhibited and stored over next hundred years. And she offers more people an opportunity to read and understand Chinese history and literature. (Xinhua/Zhang Chaoqun)