Prof Wang shows his work notes. He hopes the TELDAP team can, on the solid foundation laid down by previous principle investigators, experts and scholars, promote e-learning and digital archives throughout society so they bloom all over.

TELDAP inherited the crystallization of the efforts of many scholars and experts in the fields of IT, culture and natural sciences from the 1980s. In the revolutionary digital era, what contribution can TELDAP make to society? What impact will IT have on culture? The TELDAP e-newsletter is very proud to be able to interview vice-president of Academia Sinica and TELDAP Program Director Prof. Wang Fan-sen, together with readers exploring this much-anticipated new border.

Tracing the history of encounters between culture and technology  
Surrounded by books in the Academia Sinica Joint Library of Humanities and Social Sciences, Prof. Wang talked about his 20-odd years as a historian witnessing the dialogue between culture and technology. From the 1980s the scholars of Academia Sinica, as the early wave of PCs began to appear started contemplating how to transform ancient classics into a 0 and 1 digital code and merge them into the information world. In 1984 Academia Sinica’s Institute of History & Philology began by digitizing the 24 dynastic histories and then went on to digitize other Chinese classics, making searching by researchers much easier.

At the end of the 1990s, academia had realized that digitization was a trend that could not be ignored, and, at the wise suggestion of Academia Sinica vice-president Zhu Jing-yi and a number of other scholars, the National Science Council activated the “National Digital Archives program in 2001, followed by the National E-learning Program in 2002. The two programs were merged in 2008 to become TELDAP, through the implementation of various digital archives infrastructure projects and promotion of use in learning and application, creating abundant energy that powers society forward.

Merger of archives and learning gives rise to an outpour of limitless vitality
What exactly are the objectives of TELDAP Prof. Wang believes that the mission of national technology programs is to bring together talent, integrate resources, bringing group power into play to open up new areas of research and realize a mission. The primary objective of TELDAP is to promote digital archives and e-learning methods and concepts throughout society so they become deeply rooted in people’s minds and bloom all over. Objective two is to transcend the barriers between organizations and disciplines, through cooperation with major museums, libraries, archives, research institutes and even private collectors in Taiwan, digitizing their collections, and following common specifications, entering them into the TELDAP Union Catalogs, making them digital assets that are accessible.

With digital technology changing all the time, the environment for exploring knowledge, learning and education is facing structural changes. Through various teaching methods, aid R&D, nurturing of industry and talent training, TELDAP is carrying out infrastructure construction for the 21st Century, providing a digitized knowledge learning environment for people of different generations. Taking internal training as an example, in the past, when an organization of company reached a certain size and wanted to carry out training, it had to call together its personnel from all over Taiwan to take the course in the same place at the same time, which required expenditure of time and money; however, in an e-learning environment, all that’s needed is first to establish various kinds of course and then make effective use of the cloud environment; anyone can learn where they are when they want, significantly lowering the barrier to knowledge exploration and self-improvement. People who want to upgrade their professional skills for the workplace are not the only ones who can use the results of TELDAP to satisfy their thirst for knowledge, elementary and high school teachers looking for supplementary humanities and natural science teaching material, people who want to learn Chinese, Hakka or aborigine languages from Taiwan or overseas, and even lovers of art and culture, can also find a treasure chest of useful information.   

At present TELDAP has over 340,000 pieces of archive information and 500 archive and learning websites have been established that are rich in content and of a scale and quality equal to any in Europe and North America. Taking internationally renowned Cloud Gate Dance Theater as an example. In cooperation with National Chiaotong University’s Haran Library, recordings of previous performances have been digitized (The Cloud Gate Digitization Program is one of the public submission programs of TELDAP. The website address is http://cloudgate.e-lib.nctu.edu.tw/home.asp); Chi Mei Museum’s collection of famous violins from around the world has also been digitized. These images and sounds we thought we had missed or valuable cultural assets appear before our very eyes online. Digital archives are like a vast online library that you can browse through at your leisure. If, in the future, the stories behind each piece of archived information is explained in a detailed and interesting way and linked, it will certainly attract the gaze of the public and stimulate creativity, becoming part of their lives.

The utilization of digital assets in industry is an objective that’s worth working towards. Prof. Wang thinks Taiwan can learn from South Korea with respect to the overall packaging and marketing of culture; without the help of Dae Jang-Geum/Jewel in the Palace it is doubtful whether Korea’s history and cultural traditions would be the focus of so much interest in Asia. With the assistance of various organizations, government agencies and figures from industry, using archives as the source of creativity for industry has begun in Taiwan. For example, homestay proprietors have used ecological archives to share information about frog ecology around their homestay and other interesting knowledge with netizens to attract visitors; there are a number of other examples of creativity. The dialogue and cooperation between cultural archives and industry is in its embryonic stage and, in future, a lot of possibilities await discovery. 

Over the last 10 years substantial results and experience have been gained from the implementation of TELDAP, in terms of digital preservation of the archives of participating organizations in the early days, learning, education and industrial application and promotion of the digital archives and e-learning concepts. Prof. Wang hopes that from now on these results can be taken closer to the user and more meet the needs of the public, becoming a trove of cultural treasure of Taiwan and the whole world. In addition to digital archives, in the future sustainable management stage the creative, management and execution talent nurtured by TELDAP will continue to contribute experience and effort to society in the areas of education, culture and industry. This digitization experience can also, through a permanent digital archives and e-learning training center, can be taken to neighboring countries and to developing countries, helping to digitally preserve the diverse beauty of culture and the natural environment.

New possibilities of the era of “cultural computing”
From the perspective of a historian, Prof. Wang thinks that TELDAP is laying the foundation for the “Cultural computing age”. In the past a large amount of time was needed to search for a book, however, today the whole book can appear in front of you in seconds if you input the key word

The research of historians has also been helped significantly by digitization. Taking the Ming-Qing archives in the IHP, as an example, in the past the materials related to the researcher’s particular area of interest had to be sifted out from tens of thousands of files, a really difficult task. Historians relied on their limited memory and small cards as they dealt with the vast and complex heritage of mankind. However, with the help of digital image files and metadata, historians who make effective use of the Internet can find the archives they need in just a few seconds and even browse the entire image file. In the past when writing an academic work, a scholar would always be worried that a “submarine” in the form of a piece of historical material that they didn’t know existed would appear from nowhere and torpedo their argument. Perhaps digital archives will lessen this fear for the next generation of historians.  
Prof. Wang shared the attitude to technology of the IHP of Academia Sinica where he once worked. Fu Si-nien, the first director of the Institute, was not only a giant amongst historians, he also had an open-minded attitude towards technology. Only a few decades after photographic equipment had arrived in China and was still very expensive, Fu encouraged researchers to take photographs and record various archeological excavations and the customs and material culture of the minorities of southwest China. For Research into the Dunhuang Grottoes or research or even reproduction of the culture of minorities of southwest China, photographs taken by researchers from the IHP during field work in the 1930 and 40s are still important reference materials today.

Another good example of a benefit of digitization is that of Xiaolin Villge, destroyed in Typhoon Morakot in 2009. During the reconstruction process the results of the “Pingpu tribe fieldwork digital archives” project carried out by a team from the Institute of Ethnology led by Mr. Pan Ying-hai were released in a timely way to help cultural workers and villagers trace the tracks of the village’s night sacrifice and traditional culture. (interested readers can also visit the Digital Archives of the Institute of Ethnology and search for “Xiaolin Village Night Sacrifice”), and read “Digital Archives, Ethnology and Society in the TELDAP newsletter” and “Academia Sinica release 2000 pieces of information about Xiaolin Village” in the United Daily News.
Will the definition of “historical materials” and thinking about researching such materials change?  Historian Simon Schama believes that in the future historical research will relay more and more on digital materials, even audio-visual information and Prof. Wang shared his views on historical materials. In the past, when historian were trying to understand the relationship between people they could rely on letters, but who writes letters today? Should we archive DVD for future historians when they seek clues about the 21st century? In the past libraries collected actual books and letters. In the future should they collect more digital media? These questions are worth pondering. However, Prof. Wang also thinks that although mankind’s method of “recording the moment” is changing, this does not mean that actual historical materials will disappear or lose their value, in fact. Together with digital materials they will show different aspects of the process of the development of human civilization.
Digital technology will be our new partner in the future

In Internet era characterized by constantly appearing new things and convenience, obtaining information is no longer difficult, however, Prof. Wang thinks that transforming information into knowledge and then into intelligence is a journey that each individual has to take themselves. “Confusion, searching and setbacks are valuable assets” he says. People who work in the area of culture or science search because they are confused, and review, change and progress because of defeat. “Searching for him thousands of times in the crowd” is necessary. This means that although the digital world has brought great convenience, confusion and searching is lacking, and this is a situation that is worth pondering.

“Digital” technology is a powerful partner, the future direction of which we do not know, however Prof. Wang reminds us that in the digital environment, while we effectively use digital technology, we must still retain a critical and introspective attitude. “The Internet and digital technology has made culture and society more open and diverse, however, I believe these unchanging elements should not be ignored when we develop digital archives and e-learning.” On the turbulent sea that is the world humans sail a flimsy raft called “human nature”, powered by the wind of digital technology, cutting through endless mountainous waves as it moves towards an unknown border.