A girl views an image at an exhibition featuring the digital version of the Siku Quanshu, or The Complete Library of the Four Treasuries, in Lanzhou, northwest China's Gansu Province, Aug. 25, 2026. (Xinhua/Lang Bingbing)

　　LANZHOU, Sept. 5 (Xinhua) -- An art gallery in Lanzhou, capital of northwest China's Gansu Province, has turned a colossal ancient encyclopedia into something anyone can enjoy.

　　Instead of displaying dense classical Chinese that only scholars can master, it exhibits 122 images from this seldom-presented 18th-century compendium, such as a sketch of an ancient Indian unicorn, a star map nearly a millennium old, and the private scribbles of a stern, diligent emperor.

　　These images form part of a years-long project to digitize a copy of the Siku Quanshu, which translates as The Complete Library of the Four Treasuries, one of the most comprehensive collections of Chinese classical works in Chinese history.

　　Compiled during the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), the book runs to nearly 800 million characters across thousands of volumes, covering everything from Confucian philosophy to farming techniques. Seven copies were originally produced, but only three and a half survive today, preserved in Beijing, Taipei and Lanzhou, respectively.

　　For decades, this massive treasured book was locked away. To better preserve its copy, Lanzhou built a dedicated library in an underground repository with constant temperature and humidity. In 2021, a project was launched to digitize it.