Jointly launched by China Publishing & Media Journal and Beijing Foreign Studies University, the “2023 Overseas Library Collections of Well-Known Books from China” was formally released on June 16, 2023. A total of eight publishing houses under Beijing Publishing Group (BPG) were honorably listed among “Top 100 Publishing Houses Having Influences upon the Collection of Chinese-language Books in Overseas Libraries”, including: Beijing October Arts & Literature Publishing House, Beijing Publishing House, Wenjin Publishing House, Beijing Arts & Crafts Publishing House, Beijing Arts and Photography Publishing House, Beijing People’s Publishing House, Beijing Education Publishing House, and Beijing Juvenile & Children’s Publishing House. This year more publishing houses under BPG than ever are put on the list, and 114 books published by these publishing houses are permanently collected by overseas library systems. In addition, Wenjin Publishing House occupies the 21st place on the “2023 ranking list of the Chinese mainland publishing organizations in terms of the number of digital publications collected by overseas libraries”.

Which is the most influential Chinese publishing organization in 2023 in terms of the number of books collected by overseas libraries?

Since “Overseas Library Collections of Well-Known Books from China” was initiated in 2012, the publishing houses under BPG and the books published by these publishing houses have been put on the lists of the influential publishing houses and influential books for 12 consecutive years on end. For instance, Beijing Publishing House has been listed for 10 times and Beijing October Arts & Literature Publishing House has been listed for 9 times. Totally 13 books have been selected into the “List of the most influential Chinese-language books in the collection of overseas libraries”, including Rootless North, In the Bower of Last Year When Weather is as Fine, In the Name of People and Rest in the Cloud. All these outstanding achievements have been obtained by BPG in its efforts to implement the strategy of “going global”, to work hard to strengthen the building of capacity in international communication, and to steadily enhance the influences of originally-created excellent Chinese literary works.

“Research Report on the Influences of Chinese Mainland Publishing Houses upon the Collection of Chinese-language Books in Overseas Libraries”

The “Research Report on the Influences of Chinese Mainland Publishing Houses upon the Collection of Chinese-language Books in Overseas Libraries” (“the Report”) is based on the bibliographic data of the books published by Chinese mainland publishing organizations and collected by world library system. The Report tracks the circulation of China’s publications worldwide, and outlines the sphere of how the Chinese culture spreads in the present-day world.

The first part of the “2023 Report” monitors and analyzes the data about the Chinese-language books published by nearly 600 Chinese mainland publishing organizations from January to December in 2022 (including books republished in 2022) and collected by world library system. The “Report” reveals the most competitive part of the Chinese-language books in the international book market based on the feedback of the basic information about the annually published Chinese-language books. In 2023, books in a total of 13,569 titles published by 449 publishing houses are permanently collected by overseas library system.