Workshop on Tang Civilization

On Digitalization of Cultural Collections

 Ching-Chun Hsieh Ph.D.

Chair Professor

Hsuan Chuang University, Taiwan, ROC

Abstract

Nowadays, people begin to realize that any “form” can be digitalized. So, besides digital libraries, there are digital museums and various digital archives. Digitalization becomes so popular that you can find almost anything on the Internet. Digitalization has already begun to influence our daily life, our work, and as a consequence, it will also change our future. With this background, it is very interesting to have this workshop to study the digitalization of Tang Culture. But, there are some fundamental open questions about digitalization remains unanswered. Such as, what is information, what is digitalization, why it is so important, what are the impacts and future perspectives of digitalization on our culture, and what shall we do with digitalization°H This paper will present some primitive theories trying to address these fundamental questions with the hope that some scholars might be interested in study these topics in more detail.

In the beginning, we try to do a review on the relationship among information technology (IT), media, communication and cultural in general.  Some philosophical background will also be provided. Then, a general definition of information will be presented. With this definition, a set of very clear concepts of information can be derived. This definition can be served as a consensus for those who participated in the project of constructing a virtual reality for Tang civilization.

In the next topic, we will discuss a model that organizes all kinds of works involved in doing digitalization. This is an empirical model learned from the Digital Museum Project and the National Digital Archives Program in Taiwan some years ago. We like to share this model with you.