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The not-so-bygone worlds of music and colonialism in the twentieth century have yielded a wealth of scholarly 'paper knowledge' in the twenty-first of which to build off new archival-musicological work. This article takes a particular archiving direction by turning to paper itself – and pivots the postcolonial pen around the texts and textures of re-engaging colonial history in postcolonial music scholarship. I explore these writing stakes through my adopted narrative of 'the post/colonial music archive', as shaped by paper and paper's sounding elements of tone and voice. Crisscrossing between the colonial moment and the postcolonial pen, I straddle this developing narrative of the archive, and the registers and inflections of extant source narration for what they can jointly vocalize about the music making of the Municipal Brass Band in 1930s treaty port Shanghai, and the Sino-British Club in postwar colonial Hong Kong – two ostensible musical worlds of 'Britain in China' in the twentieth century, here thrown into disarray by the post/colonial archive's own inchoate, counter-tales. Ultimately, in this process, postcolonial music scholarship gains further traction and meaning as a multi-articulating inquiry – and a turn of mind that does not let colonial history and its persistent challenges for writing go askew. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the development of books and libraries in China, from the formation of the first dynasties until the fall of the Empire, at the beginning of the 20th century. Their status and roll were placed in the context of social, political and cultural changes, especially those which had the profound impact on their further development. The invention of paper and xylography as an initial stage in the development of printing techniques were of immense importance throughout the world at that time. Both inventions have contributed to the increase in printing and publishing production, not only within the territory of China but also in other parts of the world. In this paper, they were considered within Chinese society which was their source. Also, the paper considers different types of libraries. Special attention is given to their work in the period of stability which resulted in faster development of cultural institutions. The Imperial Library, as well as the other state libraries, was especially active during the rule of the Song dynasty. Other types of libraries developed mostly during the rule of the Tang, Ming, and Qing dynasties. In spite of the fact that Chinese libraries were not open to the public (they were more depository then rental institutions) they had strong impact, especially on groups closely related to the emperor. Exceptions were monastic libraries, since their rules obliged the monks to write and read books in the silence of the temples. The first part of the paper describes printing production which contributed to the increase in the types and number of publications in all libraries of China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]