Beginning in 1930, the IHP began undertaking the organization of the Archives of the Grand Secretariat, and at that time, found the scattered sheets of the Veritable Records of the Ming. But due to the turmoil of war, collation efforts were frequently interrupted, with the project finally finishing in 1968. Regarding this process, then Director Chi Li (1896–1979) of the IHP, who desired to resume collation efforts at that time, was able to borrow the microfilm of the “red lattice” edition of the Veritable Records of the Ming then held by the Library of Congress in 1962 to proofread the version being collated. The Archives possesses correspondence sent by bibliographer Tung-li Yuan (1895–1965) to Director Li. Inside the letter, Yuan mourns the passing away for Hu Shih (1896–1979), then president of Academia Sinica, who had directly contributed to the IHP’s collation of the veritable records by borrowing a rare edition from the National Central Library and even negotiating with the Library of Congress on behalf of the IHP to procure the “red lattice” edition.
For more on the history of the collation of this edition of the Veritable Records of the Ming, see Chang-chien Huang, “Photographically Reproducing the Red Lattice Edition of the Veritable Records of the Ming held by Beiping Library with a Preface on Collation,” Bulletin of IHP 32 (1961): 1–17 (in Chinese)