National Central Library (Ministry of Education)
Digitization of Core Taiwan Studies Resources Program
The National Central Library (NCL) proposed the "Digitization of Core Taiwan Studies Resources Program," to develop the foundation established in the first phase of the National Digital Archives Program (NDAP). The new digitization program will facilitate the continued expansion and enrichment of original materials and add other related items. This was done so as to offer core resources pertinent to Taiwan studies from every possible domain, actively promoting and expanding Taiwan’s digital archive.
The Content of the Digitization of Core Taiwan Studies Resources Program includes the following elements:
1. Establishment of the Taiwan Studies Subject Database
NCL has a number of prior successes in digitization, such as with Taiwan’s local documents, periodicals, newspapers, and other like materials. Building on these successes, and focusing primarily on academic research, NCL now aims to enrich its offerings to researchers of every domain by expanding online services pertinent to Taiwan studies, and providing personalized services on designated topics. NCL hopes this will encourage further excitement and engagement in the field of Taiwan studies.
2. Digitizing Taiwan’s local documents
- Digitizing Taiwan’s local documents: Preserving local documents and managing their relevant bibliographical materials is one of the central goals of NCL’s digitization project. Making use of its experience and maturity in the areas of digitization and application of technological standards, NCL cooperates with and assists other organizations to implement projects that relevant to digitizing Taiwan’s local documents. NCL aims to effectively preserve materials related to Taiwan’s local documents, provide educational materials pertinent to localities, and reduce the urban-rural digital divide.
- Digitization of Taiwan’s important books and documents: In the interest of facilitating the preservation, archiving, and utilization of library documents, NCL’s digitization project has afforded eternal preservation to numerous archives. The archives are now also easier to use, and will enhance productivity as well as quality of research.
- Digitizing Taiwan’s Periodicals: Periodicals and newspapers are the most rapid and versatile media for transmitting general information and research results, and are also the most vital sources of information on events in finance, politics, the humanities, social studies, technology, and other fields. Periodicals have an extremely high rate of use, but are not convenient to search for, nor are they easy to preserve. NCL digitizes periodicals in order to aid their continued preservation, increase their ease of use, and enhance their overall effectiveness.
3. Digitizing Taiwan’s government publications
NCL is the legal deposit library designated as repository for all government publications in Taiwan, and thus carries Taiwan’s most comprehensive and diverse collection of government gazette, statistics, policy plans and other such publications. Under a democratic system of government, these publications are a principal means to obtaining public information, and constitute an important medium by which the public can understand legal regulations, policy, and administrative achievements. In order to actualize the principles of government transparency and free access to information, it is necessary to create “E-government.” Thus, from 2009 on, NCL will be implementing this sub-project, offering the digitized documents for download, providing a fast and convenient service for public access online. The project hopes to effectively implement the digitization of government information, clear an open channel for the use of public data, satisfy the public’s demand for knowledge, and raise the nation’s competitive advantage.