Project Goals

Overall Goals and Explanation

The most important goal of the digitization of the national archives is to preserve and utilize artifacts and archives. Digitization will also enable the sustainable preservation of NCL's extensive collection. The academic community and cultural industries can use these resources to enhance the quality of their research and productions. The library also hopes that the project will promote exchanges with other domestic and foreign collecting organizations, and that such cooperation can result in the joint production of high-quality classical literature, local document, and periodical and newspaper databases with consistent specifications and professional input. Such databases can also revitalize many aspects of Sinology. The NCL therefore believes that the digitization of rare books, ancient literature, local documents, and periodicals and newspapers should be a long-term, permanent undertaking.

The goals of this digitization project are as follows:

Digitization of the NCL Rare Books Collection

The NCL plan calls for the digitization of 6,000 important rare books in 2004, and the continued digitization of rare books in the NCL collection through 2006. Other plans call for the digitization of approximately 6,200 ink rubbings and the establishment of the NCL Rare Books Image Database.

Digitization of Taiwan Local Documents Collection

The NCL plans to complete the digitization of its local document collection (local annals, local literature, and local government publications¡Xannouncements, statistics, and pamphlets) within five years. The scope of this work will be expanded to include the scanning of approximately two million pages of local documents in county and city cultural bureaus, literary societies, and local libraries. We will also compile roughly 120,000 items of interpretive data. The result of this work will be a major database of great importance to research on local people, events, periods, places, and things.

Digitization of the NCL Periodical and Newspaper Collections

We plan to complete digitization of approximately 1,000 periodical and roughly 30 newspapers published in Taiwan in the NCL collection within five years in order to provide more comprehensive online access to such information.

Establishment of Hardware and Software for the NCL Digital Collection Information System

The foregoing digitization projects will all require the establishment of databases and use of computer systems for the preservation and utilization of digitized materials. The NCL will thus have to establish and manage databases and information systems, and purchase necessary hardware and software to achieve the goal of systematically archiving and preserving digitized data, and making full-text images available for retrieval, browsing, or printing over the Internet. The databases created in each subproject will be integrated using appropriate server hardware and software.