SHANGHAI Library announced yesterday that 240,000 archive items — including precious manuscripts, private letters and telegrams, imperial edicts, letters to the throne, treaties, contracts and photographs — will be made available for viewing to entrants of a competition run by the library.

The second open data application development competition on April 1 is aimed at encouraging people to explore what the archives have to offer.

The competition is open to both Chinese and foreigners and competitors can register for it as individuals or as groups from April 1 to 30 on its website (http://pcrc.library.sh.cn/zt/opendata/2017). The library will organize training on May 10 to help people to understand and use the data.