On May 3rd, 1926, as one of the 30th anniversary activities of the Commercial Press, the Oriental Library was officially opened to the public. Its predecessor was Hanfen House, a subsidiary of the Commercial Press, which was closed to the public. Hanfen Building, built in 1909, is the reference room of the Compilation Institute of the Commercial Library, which is famous for collecting rare books of ancient books. 1904, Zhang Yuanji, director of the Compiling Institute of the Commercial Press, set out to build a library. Zhang Yuanji and others decided to build a five-story building in the west of Baoshan Road, opposite to the General Factory of Commercial Press, based on the old collection of Hanfen Building, and named it Oriental Library.

In 1932, the collection of Oriental Library has increased from 100 in/924 to 460,000 volumes, including rare books, manuscripts, manuscripts of Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties, as well as relatively complete collections of local chronicles, Chinese and foreign magazines, newspapers and periodicals.