 At first, readers could not borrow books, but sometime before 1918 borrowing became allowed.In 1916, the Ministry of Education (MOE) of the Republic of China ordered that a copy of every Chinese publication should be deposited at the Metropolitan Library after being registered with the Copyright Bureau.After the Northern Expedition of Kuomintang in 1928, the National Peking Library changed its name to the National Peiping Library and served as the national library with the National Central Library in capital Nanking together.