The encyclopedia was commissioned by
Emperor Zhenzong in October 1005 under the working title
Records of Relations Between Rulers and Officials in Past Dynasties but was renamed
Models from the Archives by the Emperor, to whom the finished work was presented on September 20, 1013. The final product was divided into 1,000
juan, 31 categories, and 1014 subcategories, all of which "related to administration of the empire, to bureaucracy, and to the imperial family." It did not include chapters on the natural world. Many people worked on the encyclopedia, including
Wang Qinruo and Yang Yi who requested that the emperor hire more compilers. It was almost twice as large as the
Imperial Reader of the Taiping Era and was ranked second in the
Siku Quanshu collections. ==Name==