On February 2, 2015, the fifth biennial Chinese Excellent Publication Award was held in Beijing. The session, organized by the Publishers Association of China, and held every two years, is one of the highest awards in the publication industry. A total of 338 excellent works received awards in categories covering books, audio and video electronic games, research papers, and award nominations. Experts Talking About Ancient Chinese Culture, published by the OUC Multimedia Press, claimed the prize for Chinese Excellent Publication in the area of audio and video electronic games.
Experts Talking About Ancient Chinese Culture was compiled and redesigned based on video courses made in the 1980s. It took 3 years to compile it. The 2,000-minute long video has a total of 80 episodes on 40 DVD discs. The contents cover many areas, including astronomy and calendars, history and geography, patriarchal etiquette, precious stones and paintings, classics selections, bibliographies, phonology, and so on. All of the lecturers are delivered by top-level academic experts in these areas, such as Wang Li, Qi Gong, Tan Qixiang, Ren Jiyu, Yang Bojun, Ji Shuying, etc. Having worked in their respective academic fields for decades, they are well known and prolific writers. This work compiles some of the most important knowledge related to ancient Chinese culture and allows for an in-depth exploration and integration of their various academic achievements over the years. We have compiled their collected works in video form and passed it down to all learners. Today, many scholars who participated in the programme recording have passed away. We hope that through our compilation of their works, we can save and protect these precious and nonrenewable video resources. We have used modern technology to enhance the effectiveness of their teaching so as to meet the requirements of multimedia dissemination in the information age, such as digital publishing, TV, networks, mobile terminals, etc. In this way, we hope more people today can have the opportunity to enjoy the charisma of those distinguished scholars, listen to the teaching of masters, and learn from their wisdom.
The project was mainly designed by Yan Bing. Professor Wu Hongqing served as the host, and many experts and scholars were invited to participate in the design process, including Dong Kun, researcher at the Institute of Linguistics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), Professor He Jiuying from Peking University, and Professor Wang Ning from Beijing Normal University. During the production process, a great deal of ancient literature, archaeological pictures, and videos were added, and many experts from the School of Archaeology and Museology of Peking University, Institute of Literature of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, National Library of China, Northeastern University, and the Open University of China (OUC) were also employed in the revision work so as to ensure the accuracy of the added information. Experienced editors from the Encyclopedia of China Publishing House were hired to assist in the publishing in order to control the quality and strictly follow the specifications for the printed materials.
The project was also included in the “12th Five-Year Plan” for the publishing planning for the national key audio -visual publications as well as the First Session of Excellent Publication Recommended to the older adults. It was funded and accepted by the National Publication Foundation in 2013.
By Zhang Wei