|
The National Digital Archives Program (NDAP) was launched on January 1st, 2002 and is sponsored by the National Science Council (NSC). Unique for its combination of humanities with information technology, its objective is to promote and coordinate content digitization and preservation at leading museums, archives, universities, research institutes, and other content holders in Taiwan.
The first phase of this program is a 5-year plan for the period 2002 to 2006. Of the nine National Science and Technology Programs presently sponsored by NSC, this is the only one that focuses on both the humanities and social sciences.
Background
Before the NDAP was launched, years were spent studying the impact of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) on socio-economics. These studies led us to believe that mankind is facing critical cultural and social transformations, including the shift in communications from printed to digital matter and other radical changes to daily life. ICTs have advanced to a level that affords us the opportunity to digitize our cultural treasures and heritage, so they can be preserved and utilized in the digital era, preventing their gradual disuse and disappearance.
Realizing the importance of digital content, the NSC initiated several pilot projects in 1998 to study the feasibility of digitizing national cultural holdings. The first such project was the three-year “Digital Museum Project,” in which dozens of universities and research organizations participated. The NDAP was organized out of the experiences of its predecessor programs, which also included the National Archive Digitization Project and the International Digital Library Cooperation Plan. Currently, there are nine public institutions participating in the NDAP, though as time goes on, we anticipate that an increasing number of organizations, both public and private, will join the effort to digitize Taiwan’s cultural, intellectual, and natural resources.
Goals
The goals of NDAP are manifold, with the ultimate mission of preserving and sustaining the culture and civilization of mankind. They are to:
Preserve national cultural collections.
Popularize fine cultural holdings.
Revitalize cultural heritage and cultural development.
Invigorate cultural, content, and value-added industries.
Promote knowledge and information sharing.
Enhance research, education, and life-long learning.
Improve literacy, creativity and quality of life.
Embrace collaboration and international community.
Organization
The program is divided into three components: the Program Office, Institutional Projects, and Non-solicited Projects. Our current NDAP Program Director is Dr. Ovid J. L. Tzeng, Vice President of the Academia Sinica, and the Chief Executive Officer of the Program Office is Dr. Der-Tsai Lee, Director of the Institute of Information Science at the Academia Sinica.
The Program Office oversees the program and coordinates all of the projects of NDAP. There are five divisions in the Program Office: Content Development, Research & Development of Technology, Applications & Services, Training & Promotion, and Operations Management. These divisions collaborate in carrying out the overall planning responsibilities of the Program Office, build common infrastructures, and establish general content processing guidelines and specifications for all institutional and non-solicited projects.
Institutional projects are being conducted by major content holders and providers of digital resources in Taiwan. Currently, there are nine participating institutions: Academia Historica, Academia Sinica, the National Central Library, the National Museum of History, the National Museum of Natural Science, the National Palace Museum, National Taiwan University, Taiwan Historica, and the Taiwan Provincial Consultative Council.
In order to allow external organizations to participate in the digital archival project, the NDAP also selects non-solicited projects from proposals submitted to open Request-for-Proposal announcements under the four categories of digital content development, technology research and development, value-added digital archive applications, and creative learning digital archive applications. In 2006, we selected 29 non-solicited projects for digital content development, 12 for research and development of technology, 14 for various applications of digital archives, and 20 for creative learning.
To help the program run efficiently, the Program Office has set up a number of groups divided by function to meet the needs of coordination, technical support, and personnel training. To assist with coordination, 16 thematic groups were organized for content, 6 working groups for technology, and 4 groups for technical support. The 16 thematic groups for content are Anthropology, Archaeology, Architecture, Archives, Artifacts, Audio-Video, Botany, Calligraphy & Painting, Chinese Classics, Geology, Journalism & Mass Media, Linguistics, Maps & Remote Images, Rare Books, Stone & Bronze Rubbings, and Zoology. Through this organization schematic, different thematic groups are able to share their experiences, discuss and discover potential solutions for problems in digital archival, and mutually observe and emulate effective processes.
Additionally, there are six working groups dealing with technology-specific issues: Formats of Digital Objects and Archives, Digital Archives Services, Multilingual Information Processing, Multimedia Digitization Procedures, Naming and Distributed Searching, and Reference Platforms for Digital Archives. These groups meet on a regular basis to discuss technological issues related to building user-centered, scalable, interoperable, and cross-cultural systems.
Finally, there are four technical support groups facilitating the smooth production and exchange of digitally-archived content: Linguistics Anchoring of Digital Archives, Metadata Support, Spatio-Temporal Content Architecture, and the NDAP Union Catalog.
Outcomes
Most tangibly, the outcomes of NDAP will include a collection of databases called the “Taiwan Digital Archives (TDA).” Since its inception, the NDAP has already contributed numerous digital collections into the TDA. The wide variety of subject matters represented in these collections include historical maps of China and Taiwan (1860-1970); a language corpora for local languages and dialects at various times and places in history; collections of indigenous cultures; contemporary historical archives of China and Taiwan (1860-1970); indigenous flora and fauna (including species of fish, shellfish, plants, insects, and birds); minerals; archaeological and fossil collections; stone and bronze rubbings; ancient calligraphy, paintings, and rare books; collections of jade, porcelain, and bronze historical photographs; and early newspapers and periodicals, as well as selected journalism documents.
The digital resources in the TDA are divided into three types: archival, open-market, and public information. Archival resources are for preservation purposes and accessible only on a case-by-case basis. Open-market resources will be released (for a fee) for commercial use, from which value-added digital contents can be created, and for which digital services can be provided. Finally, output of the public information type is for educational purposes and free of charge for public consumption. Thus far, we have built a Union Catalog containing over one million entries; see http://catalog.ndap.org.tw/. Further details about the NDAP’s public exhibition system are available at URL http://digital101.ndap.org.tw/.
Prospective
Besides preserving national collections, popularizing Taiwan’s cultural holdings, and encouraging sharing of knowledge and information among content holders and citizens, we expect that in the future the NDAP will serve as a foundation for innovative applications that improve creativity, productivity, and quality of life. Additionally, using the digital resources of the Taiwan Digital Archives, we hope to stimulate development of interdisciplinary technologies and to invigorate the information, software, value-added, artistic, and creative industries, ultimately creating a solid base for the future of Taiwan as a digital nation. More information is available at URL http://www.ndap.org.tw.
Epilogue
Planning is underway for the second phase of the National Digital Archives Program, spanning the years of 2007 – 2011. In this phase, we aim to expand the Taiwan Digital Archives, to make our digital collections easily and readily accessible to people both in Taiwan and abroad, and to support the formation and development of a knowledge-based society, bringing Taiwan to the forefront of the digital era. More specifically, we plan to establish three major divisions aimed at achieving the following goals:
(i) To showcase Taiwan’s biological, cultural, and social diversity.
(ii) To enhance the cultural, academic, socio-economic and educational values derived from Taiwan Digital Archives.
(iii) To promote an internationally cooperative exchange network for Chinese cultural heritage.
Additionally, two core plans will be organized in the second phase, one devoted to research and development of advanced ICTs for the NDAP and the other to the enhancement of the Union Catalog project and the public exhibition system.
The Digital Archives Program is a long-term, multi-generational endeavor that will have lasting effects on our society. We continue to accumulate and expand the scope of our digital collections; the nine public institutions already participating in this national effort, 2007 will see the inclusion of several new organizations, including the Council for Cultural Affairs, the Council of Indigenous Peoples, the Chinese Taipei Film Archive of the Government Information Office, and the National Archives Administration. As we enter the second phase, we will set up a long-term plan to promote NDAP by adopting state-of-the-art ICTs such as Web 2.0, creating an enduring business model, cooperating with the private sector, and establishing partnerships with our counterparts worldwide.
In this era of globalization and instant information, our aim is to bring Taiwan’s rich store of digital content into the international arena, our mission is to bridge the digital divide and serve as a leader in information technology and social development, and ultimately, our vision is to highlight the emergence of Taiwan and provide a foundation for the establishment of Taiwan’s distinctive spirit and cultural identity.
|