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Informatization Status & Development Plan

of China Cultural Heritage

Luo JingDirector of Division of Conservation Science & Information

Department of MuseumsChina State Administration of Cultural Heritage

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Contents

Preface

Ⅰ. The informatization Status of China cultural heritage

Ⅱ. The 5-year plan of informatization development of cultural heritage in China

Ⅲ. The conclusion

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Preface

As a nation of ancient civilization with a long history, China holds numerous and various cultural heritages.

At present, the number of monuments and sites known are near 400,000, including 23 cultural heritages and 4 cultural and natural heritages in “World Heritage List” of UNESCO, and collections in public museums are about 20 million pieces.

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The Chinese Government attaches the importance to the

preservation of cultural heritages all through the ages.

The Constitution of the People's Republic of China regulates definitely: the State protects historic monuments and sites, valuable artifacts and other significant cultural heritages.

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Law of the People’s Republic of China on Protection of Cultural

Relics (2002) declared the following protection guidelines: 1. Heritage preservation should be the matter of primary importance. 2. Heritage should be salvaged first when encounters damaging situations. 3. Heritage should be utilized reasonably. 4. Heritage management should be reinforced.

In February 2006, the Chinese Government promulgated the Notice of Promoting Cultural Heritage Protection; it will act as a directive document to command the relevant practices for a long time. The Notice also set out the second Saturday of June as the Chinese Cultural Heritage Day since the year 2006.

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Activities of the first Chinese Cultural Heritage Day

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In order to illuminate the direction in cultural heritage’s

informatization development for guiding the work in the next five years, The Chinese Government worked out the " Eleventh Five-year plan of Chinese Cultural Heritage informatization Development " separately in the same program of Cultural Heritage Protection.

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Ⅰ. Informatization Status of China cultural heritage

ⅰ. General situation

The informatization construction of China cultural heritage began in 1980s and focused on information infrastructure, museum collections documentation and digital application system research.

The Chinese State Administration of Cultural Heritage and some provincial cultural heritage administrations built their websites to provide government affair service on net.

The Chinese State Administration of Cultural Heritage also set up an informatization working party for guiding the domestic related work; at the same time it organized a National Cultural Heritage Information Consultative Center as a study, consultation, and service institute of cultural heritage’s informatization construction.

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The website of State Administration of Cultural Heritage of China (www.sach.gov.cn)

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The National Cultural Heritage Information Consultative Center

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The “Cultural heritage inquiry and its database management system” Project

Digital Dunhuang Grottos

Digital Palace Museum

ⅱ . The main informatization construction projects

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ⅰ)The “Cultural heritage inquiry and its database management system” Project

In 2001, the China Government started the “Cultural heritage inquiry and its database management system establishment” project.

The project aims at investigating and consummating the domestic data of cultural heritage conservation by digitization methods, in order to found and operate a dynamic database management system as well as constitute vocational criterion.

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Based on the collaboration of many participators, up to August 2004, the project had built more than 1500,000 digital archives of museum collections .

The project created cultural heritage information centers in national and provincial levels and interconnected them.

The projects is in progress, its overall purpose is to accomplish the digital documentation of collections in all public museums at national level, and based on it to develop a national applied system platform gradually of collection’s management, research, conservation and utilization for all public museums.

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The Data Center of Cultural Heritage of Gansu Province

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With the commencing of informatization construction of the Imperial Palace Museum, the “Digital Imperial Place” project was started in 1998. Communication fiber was installed gradually in all areas of the palace for a 1000Mb network system.

ⅱ) The “Digital Palace Museum”

Now the museum holds 12km of fiber optic cable and 60km of enhanced category 5 twisted-pair cable. The network is based on 24 sub-nets with around 1500 information storages.

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They digitized the images and inventory of the museum collection, developed and run management system software, and constituted a database with more than 50,000 high resolution images stored.

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In June 2000, the museum advanced the idea of “Digital Palace Museum” formally, and opened the website of “Digital Palace Museum” (www.dpm.org.cn) in next year. In the website there are fourteen main menus embody above four thousands images of various objects, function as detail browse and panoramic display of virtual exhibit.

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The museum created a virtual theater recently and produced a feature film of 3D animated cartoons “The Palace and the son of Heaven”. Multimedia display equipments and virtual gallery

are installed in some exhibit rooms.

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The digital Hall of Central Harmony in Forbidden City

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The Dunhuang Academy commenced the “Digital Dunhuang Grottos” project in collaboration with several domestic and foreign scientific research institutions in 1990s.

ⅲ) The “Digital Dunhuang Grottos”

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At the present time, the academy had finished the measurement, photography and cataloguing of 22 grottos as well as the exploitation of virtual visiting in 42 grottos based upon Quick Time VR technique.

They also acquired mature techniques and experiences in images collection and storage, historical reconstruction in computer, grottos’ virtual simulation and fresco patterns production.

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The video of digital grottos

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Ⅱ. The 5-year plan of informatization development of cultural heritage in China

ⅰ. The goal of the plan

To establish and consummate the management system, operation mechanism, policies and regulations for informatization construction.

To expedite continuously the information resources accumulation and improve their quality.

To found the rudiments of a countrywide net system of cultural heritage information and complete the application service system in every level.

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To complete the elementary database of valuable collections in all public museum and of national significant monuments and sites, and to set up a dynamic database management system.

To constitute a information management platform of cultural heritage protection affairs in order to provide policy support for relevant management work.

To promote the communion of information resources continuously and to form a good environment for exploitation, utilization, service, and management of cultural heritage information resources.

To enhance the fundamental technique research of cultural heritage informatization and its results popularization.

To expedite the organization of practitioners and to enhance their training.

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Information network of China cultural heritage diagram

AA省数据中心省数据中心

10101011010101

BB 省数据中心省数据中心

10101011010101

CC省数据中心省数据中心

10101011010101

国家数据中心国家数据中心

10101011010101

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ⅱ. The main tasks

ⅰ)To perfect the policy, regulations, programs and criteria of informatization gradually

ⅱ)To constitute the information infrastructure that predominated by the National Cultural Heritage Data Center, based on the cultural heritage information net, and safeguarded by information security system

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ⅲ) To build the elementary database of national cultural heritages that predominated by valuable collection in public museums and national significant monuments and sites

ⅳ)Based on the digitization of basic information data to promote informatization of archaeological excavation, large-scale sites preservation and cultural relic conservation project

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ⅴ)To use the spatial information techniques for improving the management, protection and information service capacity of cultural heritage

ⅵ)To proceed the museum informatization work continuously and to accelerate the framework study of digital museum techniques in China

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ⅶ)To perfect the facilities and information infrastructure for science and technology for achieving the open and communion of conservation technology information

ⅷ)To construct entirely the informatization of government affair management for improving the informatization level of daily operation in cultural

heritage administrations

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ⅸ)To found two or three research bases of conservation information technique development and application, and a group of provincial demonstrating bases of informatization results popularization

ⅹ)To expedite the organization of practitioners and to enhance their training in order to form an applicable informatization work group for the need of cultural heritage’s progress

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we expect the informatization of cultural heritage could catch attention and support of much more domestic and foreign academies and research institution, under the guidance of the Plan, to cooperate in promoting the development in informatization of China cultural heritage, and for protection, transmission and inheritance of cultural heritage to make more efforts.

Ⅲ. The conclusion

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The End