Creating a Digital Ark for a Nation and Its Civilization a Report on the First Seven Years of an Innovative Decade Long Effort

THE COOK REPORT ON INTERNET PROTOCOL JULY 2008

Creating a Digital Ark for a Nation and its Civilization A Report on the First Seven Years of an Innovative Decade Long Effort

The Origins of a fields of knowledge all cross- Volume XVI, No. 4 linked with Dublin Core me- July 2008 Digital Ark ISSN 1071 - 6327 tadata. The project seemed Almost three years ago Si- to be a breath taking experi- zation was extremely compel- mon Lin invited me to intro- ment in the building a hyper ling. duce him as part of a brief linked digital universe designed to go far beyond any- talk to the opening session of When I met Simon and the Pacific Neighborhood thing that Google had yet at- James in Honolulu in Novem- Consortium Digital Library tempted to that point. ber of 2005, I decided that I meeting in Honolulu. In wanted to explore on my own preparation Simon sent me I fell in love with the “old is and document the entire pro- new” theme in commercials an envelope of materials in- ject. It took about two years cluding a few wonderfully developed for the National and a trip in August of 2007 done CD-ROMs about the Palace Museum, especially to Xi’an China to snag Simon Taiwan National Digital Ar- the one with the revolving Lin again and convince him to chive Project. What he sent fishbowl vase that merged bring me to Taipei. I spent into the face of the pussycat’s captured my imagination as it two weeks there in April of described one of the first and dream of chasing the goldfish 2008 and this July 2008 issue still most extensive digital and ended with the words is my report on what I’ve archive projects in the world. “National Palace Museum - learned. where your dreams come true.” The artistic ability of Under the leadership of Aca- On the Inside demia Sinica, the Taiwanese James Lin of the museum government was undertaking staff to portray Asian aes- Taiwan’s NDAP thetics and modern technol- to digitize all of Taiwan’s cul- Contents p. 56 ture -- art history, artifacts, ogy combined in a story line than that blends the modern botany, - zoology, geology Please read Explanatory Note page 55 everything in its entire civili- digital world into the poetry zation and physical environ- of ancient Chinese civili- ment -- some 17 different

Invited by Kilnam Chon to NDAP was founded by a col- technology in Taiwan. Un- give a talk at the August laboration between Academia fortunately there are a series 2007 Xi’an Digital Archive Sinica, National Taiwan Uni- of related questions that meeting, I displayed a naive versity and the National Sci- need well-thought-out an- pro-Internet point of view as ence Council where it was de- swers to enable a unified I asked the archivists to think cided to digitize fields of strategy to create the foun- about the most effective way knowledge in parallel and to dation for the sustainability to simply open up and place do so with cross linked meta- needed for the success of the without prior expectations data, encompassing the project. the best representations of rather stunning idea that one their civilization’s on the should be able to hop from The players are facing a set Internet - material – free for the artistic depiction of birds of vexing questions. They the taking in which people decorating the robes of a Con- include the need to iron out from other countries could fucian scholar into a database conflicting fields of authority, immerse themselves. I had of birds in their natural envi- the need to obtain continued no idea of the walls inside the ronment in – a kind of meta- government funding, and an museum world and knew physical stretching of the uncertainty about how to nothing of the protective na- techniques of using the mind monetize the results. There ture -- indeed, of the closed assisted by technology to is also a generally typical nature -- of much of the cul- transcend the traditional problem that confronts all of ture of the museum world. boundaries of knowledge. those of us who love technology. When we have a new I had hoped that the project This was something with tre- toy or a new project, we might somehow magically mendous allure and some- must ask what we want it convert itself in a wonderfully thing where, when it was for? What will we do with it? cross-linked Pantopticon of all added to the lavish expendi- We will digitize everything. aspects of Taiwanese culture ture of artistic talent on behalf Then what? Do we under- opening high resolution image of the National Palace Mu- stand the full implications of is of amazing cards to all the seum, I fully expected to see where we are trying to go? Is visitors on the Internet with a the storehouse of treasures to it possible to even begin to Photosynth-like virtual reality -- figuratively speaking -- be understand them until you capabilities for those not quite walking on water when I ar- set out on a journey? able to get on the airplane rived at the museum. Instead and the visit in person. it was something of a disap- Coordinating everything into pointment to see a walled an overarching vision and My hopes turned out to be a garden pre-Internet vision one that encompasses an en- bit premature and what I that said “leave your cameras tire civilization, both physical have found in Taipei is a at home.” and aesthetic, is biting off a storehouse of projects of un- very large problem on which imagined complexity and Why Was it Done? to chew. It would require challenges. One that is well Just Because it Could something much longer than done but still struggling to Be? a single COOK Report to de- find decisive direction on scribe in any significant detail which to build a permanent To an outsider NDAP certainly a project as broad and com- foundation by the end of the seems to be a good fit for a plex as this and one that is project’s second five years in symbiotic relationship of gov- also truly groundbreaking by 2011. ernment investment in new

© 2008 COOK NETWORK CONSULTANTS 431 GREENWAY AVE. EWING, NJ 08618-2711 USA PAGE 2 THE COOK REPORT ON INTERNET PROTOCOL JULY 2008 virtue of its cross disciplinary end goal for the construction www.ndap.org.tw/96AnnualE scope. of a digital ark for an entire xhibition/InternationalConfer civilization. ence/tuesday.php One of the What I have found is a vast crucial goals of TELDAP is to project with many loose ends This is no easy task. Acade- develop a “public culture a n d m a n y i m p r e s s i v e mia Sinica and the Taiwanese network” in order enable Tai- achievements. It is one that, government leadership are to wan’s citizens and Manadrin in part, was begun because be applauded for attempting speaking users of the internet the technology was there that it. to share information about made it possible to attempt. Taiwan’s historical, cultural So why not do it? Perhaps On a concluding note: I and natural heritage. Web- the greatest weakness is asked Dr Chiu for his com- sites related to this effort are about there is no overall an- ments on my findings and CyberIsland swer to the question of what especially with regard to the http://cyberisland.ndap.org.t next? Indeed one that might the questions I raised above. w/ and say how could there be such He replied with a copy of the http://teldap.tw/Program/pro an answer because, if there presentation that he gave on gram.php both in Mandarin. were, it would imply a single March 18 2008: “Initiating a all-knowing, all-seeing vision Public Culture Network in for how to meld financial in- Taiwan: Next Step for Taiwan vestment, technology capa- Digital Archives Expansion bility, human aesthetics, and Project, TELDAP” the ability to define a single

Taiwanʼs newly elected President Ma Ying-jeou appears at a performance of the Taiwan National Opera Company at the Baoan Temple on April 13th. Note that all photographs except for those on page 39 and the bottom of page 45 were taken by Gordon Cook, Editor and Publisher of the COOK Report on Internet Protocol. © 2008 COOK NETWORK CONSULTANTS 431 GREENWAY AVE. EWING, NJ 08618-2711 USA PAGE 3 THE COOK REPORT ON INTERNET PROTOCOL JULY 2008

National Digital Archive Program - the Policy and Technology Rationale Dr. Simon Lin Examines the Purpose and Context

Editor’s Introduction: Dr. 7, 2008 With this capability it was Simon Lin was the Director of possible to digitize enter- Academia Sinica Computing The Origins of the tainment as well as content. Centre from 1990 until 2005. However, we looked at enter- He built the Taipei GigaPoP NDAP Program tainment as something that dark-fibre infrastructure and was not our concern as it was COOK Report: Would you led the international network- much more short lived and please begin by explaining ing for Taiwan. He piloted the likely would have less impact the background out of which Digital Library/ Museum pro- on the quality of society than the National Digital Archive jects in Academia and par- would the more unique his- Project (NDAP) grew. ticipated Taiwan's National torical one-of-a-kind works Digital Archives Program. and objects. So this first part Simon Lin: There are really The last PhD of Peter Higgs, of the background from which two foundations on which the (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ NDAP comes is more conven- project has been built. The Peter_Higgs) Simon is re- tional. It flowed from the first enabler was the basic sponsible for WLCG Tier-1 available technology and was principles of digital technol- Centre in Taipei and Asia rather obvious. ogy and the Internet. That is Federation of EGEE, help to to say: the continuously ex- coordinate EUAsiaGrid pro- The second aspect is rather ponential growth of the ject. unique because it deals with power and capabilities of ICT the particular background of technology from the 60s I interviewed Simon at Aca- Taiwan. Let me give you as through 90s. The explosive demia Sinica in Taipei on April an example something that is growth of CPU not really well known in the speed, storage, world at large. In the early and global net- 17th century the Spanish oc- works culmi- cupied the north of Taiwan nating in the and the Dutch the southern Internet made part. Now in the 18th and 19th it possible to century Taiwan was part of think rationally the Ch’ing Empire and in the about the ex- first half of the 20th-century tensive digitiza- Taiwan was part of Japan and tion of objects, then went back to Chinese their cataloging authority at the end of World and their avail- War II so as you can see the ability over the hands of government for Tai- Internet. Dr Simon Lin wan changed many times in

© 2008 COOK NETWORK CONSULTANTS 431 GREENWAY AVE. EWING, NJ 08618-2711 USA PAGE 4 THE COOK REPORT ON INTERNET PROTOCOL JULY 2008 the last two or 300 years. ple in the southern islands. prising to many to find that This man started to trace the there are at least a couple of When the Dutch were in the change in vocabulary west- dozen of native languages south, they actually helped wards to Taiwan and scholars remaining. one of the local ethnic groups in Taiwan started following of people to use a Romanized changes eastward. More re- For example a town of south- alphabet that became the re- cently DNA samples of the ern Taiwan is called Moadao. gional language for that par- Maori people in New Zealand This comes from ethnic peo- ticular ethnic group that we and ethnic people in Taiwan ple who say matta and you called the Hsin-Kang. The were taken and they were can hear it the same words in documents that resulted are found to be essentially broth- the Philippines where Matta still available. In one case ers. means “eyes” and “Tau” the entire Bible was trans- means human. Conse- lated into this language using This is intriguing because quently, human cultural di- the Romanized alphabet and these findings estimate that versity is one aspect of Tai- this of course became part of there were two or three hun- wan. the culture of these peoples. dred Austronesian languages There is enormous but little in Taiwan. Can you believe The other very important as- known cultural diversity here. that? But later on there were pect is biodiversity. Moun- only about 100 languages tains form two thirds of our For example, very few people remaining and is now it land mass and hundreds of know that Taiwan is the origin seems that far fewer than these mountains are close to of the Austronesian or south- 100 languages are left. But 4000 m in height. As a re- ern island peoples. These still as Taiwan is such a rela- sult - given a warm and wet people originated in Taiwan tively small place, it is sur- climate we preserve a very about 5000 years ago. Edi- tor: S e e http://en.wikipedia.org/wi ki/Austronesian_people

COOK Report: These are the people who migrated across the Pacific?

Lin: Indeed they traveled extensively to the east to Easter Island to the south to the Maori people in New Zea- land and to the west across the Indian Ocean all the way to Madagascar. They also reached Hawaii and Tahiti. In the 1950s a professor at Commercial Design the University of Hawaii was Chiung-Min Tsai of the National Taiwan University Center of Digital Archives intrigued by the similarity in gave me a tour of the NDAP exhibition in down town Taipei on April 7. This is the vocabularies of the peo- was a very good exhibit outlining all the phases of NDAP. The picture above illustrates a section where artifacts are being copied for purposes of commercial design. © 2008 COOK NETWORK CONSULTANTS 431 GREENWAY AVE. EWING, NJ 08618-2711 USA PAGE 5 THE COOK REPORT ON INTERNET PROTOCOL JULY 2008

land China you will find of course many cultures that tended to become integrated with each other. In Taiwan we have of course Han Chinese as the ethnic majority. But our ethnic cultures are much better pre- served than any other places. We also have people from Holland and Japan. The older generation here knows Japanese very well; many of them have proper education from the Japanese time. We The Bird Orchestra are also sending peo- http://www.museums.ntu.edu.tw/english/special1.jsp ple to get the East In- According to the website "Bird Orchestra in Taiwan" is an interactive game for visi- dian archives from the tors to experience the enjoyment of Taiwan's native bird singings. Touch the screen Netherlands and we to spot the singing bird stars! The beautiful appearance of the chosen one will be have people who un- on the central stage. Scroll down to check their habitats and life histories. Some might come with complimentary film bonus!! Visitors can also remix the bird sing- derstand medieval ings with contemporary music to conduct their own symphony.” Dutch going there to acquire those contents The above description doesn't do it justice. The program came up on my machine and return them. here in my hotel room perfectly AND INSTANTLY. You must scroll your cursor onto the bird at he center of the page. Click and you get a pop up window. Click and drag any of the 18 bird images to the orchestra score bars at the bottom of the So this then is the sig- window. Then click and drag any of the 4 microphones labeled “a” through “d” to nificant background. the second bar. Press play a watch and listen. Apple ought to add this to Garage First and foremost is Band. It's THAT good. the critical evolution of ICT in the 1990s that large degree of biodiversity. Taiwan is about 100 times COOK Report: So this large made it possible to begin to do this in a serious way. We greater than the global aver- wet and warm island goes started the current project in age in terms of the number from sea level to 4000 me- January 2002 and it’s evident of species found per square ters and it must be in the now that it will run for 10 kilometer of land. if you look path of migrations of all at the fish found in and kinds. years. In the first five years the government of Taiwan around Taiwan, one third of invested around US$100 mil- the species are unique and Lin: Exactly. Because we lion and they will invest in found nowhere else. We also are an island we have so the second five years about have a collection of unique many migrating birds that bird songs that we have digit- come here. Historically, if you another US$100 million. ized. look at big country like main- COOK Report: How do you

© 2008 COOK NETWORK CONSULTANTS 431 GREENWAY AVE. EWING, NJ 08618-2711 USA PAGE 6 THE COOK REPORT ON INTERNET PROTOCOL JULY 2008 summarize the arguments the nation’s attitude toward ideas that he put forward that were made regarding the its culture, you realize that have found homes in the Min- necessity of doing this? institutions like public librar- istry of Culture in various ies are a very recent inven- countries. These ministries Lin: The rationale for doing tion. Most of them were became focused on small mi- this from the government created in the late 19th or norities. There is always a point of view is to be a foun- early 20th century. Just political agenda behind all of dation for innovative use of imagine that before this all this. But it doesn’t matter ICT. the important private collec- because this enables people tions were in the hands of the to become more involved in COOK Report: In other lords or the nobility or the understanding and preserving words, with these ICT tech- wealthy classes. Then, as their local culture. nologies maturing, investing the Industrial Revolution in a program like this would brought about the gap in the Now all of this came together create a very innovative test late 19th century between the in the 1990s when the big- bed for bringing these tech- rich and the poor a lot of the gest problem became things nologies together and making wealthy industrialists realized like investment in health care them interact and work with that they should invest in a and education were more each other in creative ways. cultural institution that would demanding of public funds. Doing this would be likely to stabilize the society and seed new economic activities make it less extreme. As the NDAP program pro- and development? gressed, you had the devel- An example was Andrew Car- opment of the core technolo- Lin: This was certainly the negie who donated money for gies, but intertwined with this government rationale for do- 1500 public libraries saying development was always the ing this. But the truth is that he wanted people to be motivation of the apprecia- that the people who were in- prudent evolutionaries rather tion of the cultural heritage. volved were motivated much than violent revolutionaries. Many of the people involved more by their desire to pre- Now in the 20th century these saw what they were doing as serve the cultural heritage.

COOK Report: A profound benefit.

Lin: Exactly.

COOK Report: So what you just articulated was probably how the people involved sold their desire to preserve the cultural heritage to the government?

Lin: Yes but what kept people going forward was much more the latter, namely the interest in the nation’s cultural heritage. If you look at The red box indicates content holder new to phase two of NDAP

part of a new paradigm shift. taken these 16 and combined entered. This is something The ideas of people like Car- them into six thematic group- that has created anticipation negie seeded the currents out ings. [Editor: This is dis- among humanities scholars of which the project was nur- cussed in more detail below.] who realize that with the con- tured and grew. tents of the classics in the COOK Report: How did the database, they can begin to The First Five Years project become so cross dis- see these classics in entirely ciplinary? new ways. COOK Report: And in the Lin: The cross disciplinary There was a famous person Li first five years? outcome came from the ef- Shan who edited and com- forts of Academia Sinica and piled a collection of classic Lin: Let me give you some National Taiwan University. literature. There was also quantitative outcomes. In the It was fortunate that in both someone who annotated this first five years we digitized places we had experience in effort. He was given a unique 250 TB of content compris- working with the humanities. name. They called him a two ing more than 3 million In Academia Sinica, in the legged book shelf because items. This is already social sciences and humani- he held an enormous knowledge about these classics in his brain. Nevertheless he often misunderstood the meanings because he did not sufficiently integrate and di- gest all in the content and its associated nuances.

Today in art and history you need to have knowledgeable people to guide others to find appropriate references. Some day if you have all of this appropriately digitized, the human two legged book- shelf becomes less necessary. We believe that the humanities people will come back and tell you that the availability of digitization and da- Quantitative output from NDAP phase one 2001- 2006 tabases enabled them to see new things that they had not equivalent in size to about ties, we were the strongest in understood before. one half of the American Li- the world in digitization, even brary of Congress. in the 1990s. For example There are many examples. we began to type in the full You can take archaeology The effort covered 16 differ- text of the Chinese classics. findings and put them on a ent fields of knowledge from We started this in the late map and look at them from anthropology to zoology. 1980s and at this point have both temporal and spatial as- With Phase Two we have about 500 million characters pects.

the transition at the end of the first five years to what is happening now.

Lin: I think we have 370 TB of data digitized. I would guess that by the end of Phase Two we will reach perhaps one peta- byte. In our union catalog we now have more than 5 million entries because some objects have more than one metadata record. I think in the most recent count was more than 4 million objects in the total col- Enabling New Kinds of Research lection. COOK Report: Isn’t the You can see that the interdis- most critical goal one of try- COOK Report: Is there any ciplinary development really ing to keep the cooperation kind of master coordination doesn’t start from us. You of both the foxes and hedge- planning being done? always have people who are hogs? very narrowly field focused. Lin: Yes. Let me give you a Lin: Yes. That is true. You gave me the metaphor of basic outline. First of all con- the Hedgehog and Fox when Transition to Phase tent is the core. Therefore we we talked a few years ago have a content division that and I think it’s traditionally in Two - Three levels of is responsible for cooperation academic society that people Content Quality between participating institu- are more likely to be hedge- tions. Then there is the hogs because being focused COOK Report: So back to question of how to apply the in enables you to survive in the hierarchy. But from time to time you have people who are more foxlike. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ The_Hedgehog_and_the_Fox

These foxes are our best al- lies at this point because they convince more and more people to join and cooperates and cross fertilize. We had a very useful and good fox who was a part of our project but in the end he couldn’t stay.

© 2008 COOK NETWORK CONSULTANTS 431 GREENWAY AVE. EWING, NJ 08618-2711 USA PAGE 9 THE COOK REPORT ON INTERNET PROTOCOL JULY 2008 content in such a way that it COOK Report: If you show integrates with the needs of all these leading-edge possi- Making Cross industry. Next you have the bilities to people like the disk Disciplinary Data technology group. This group drive manufacturers, or the is also known as the core display technology develop- Available technology group that woks ers, then you can enable In the United States the with the content people. them to imagine new uses for money for digitization comes their products? from the National Science We have three categories of Foundation. This means that content. The first content Lin: Quite possibly. I know in the NSF establishes its own category is called archival some people who have inter- very sharply defined criteria level and has a very very ests in connection with dis- for what it will fund. Con- high resolution. For exam- play technologies. Here you sequently, to them the e- ple, the Palace Museum, with would include the very high learning aspects of a project its very high resolution im- resolution images ages, can manufacture far in order to have better replicas then they an LCD frame could before. In some ways t h a t c a n b e they are almost better than h u n g o n t h e the originals. wall and display these im- The second level of resolution ages as though is called “industrial grade” they were fine and is considered to be good paintings. De- enough for digital publica- ve l o p m e n t o f tions and for making huge n e w d i s p l a y posters. The third category technologies in is referred to as the public Taiwan is a very dissemination grade. This is key technology to be available for use by effort. [Editor’s anyone. Note: I w a s able to inter- Now the second category or view Dr. David industrial grade is intended N. Liu, Director for use with industry and to of the Strategic support an examination of Planning Divi- the question of how much sion of the Dis- revenue is being generated. play technology When you visit James Lin at Center at ITRI – the National Palace Museum the Industrial you will be able to see some Technology Re- of the extensive efforts that search Center. I the museum has made to use intend to pub- the digitizations to develop a lish that inter- whole series of products that view separately can be sold. l a t e r i n t h e In search of Income for Sustainability. Commercial summer.] Objects Made from Digitized Figures

to send to the capital the price of rice and wheat and of all grains? So now some 300 years later we understand that there is a continu- ous record of the price of rice wheat and barley every month from every province in all of China.

Measured in number of years this is the longest existing time series of economic data in the world. Comparable economic time series are all Above: ﬁgurines for sale. at less than one century in duration. All in this data Below: an Mp3 Player in an Ancient form factor and a Blessing Lock may be found in the archives of the Ch’ing dy- n a s t y t h a t A c a d e m i a Sinica were able to acquire in 1928 and are now here at Academia Sinica in Taipei. They are are now being digitized for use by scholars in the rest of the world.

Here is something else that is well known. I believe it was during the Sung dynasty that the crab nebula was born. Light from this nebula that like this might not be impor- trying to enable at the link- reached to the earth was tant. However, to us all this is age of this content for use by seen in the capital city of the very much interconnected. If other scholars and research- Sung Dynasty where for this is funded by the National ers in papers they write and three days and three nights Palace Museum, they may by other museums. there was consecutive day well be interested to use the light. This was during the resources to develop new The Ch’ing Dynasty lasted for dark ages in Europe where st services for the 21 century 268 years and ended only in people thought it was the with the goal of getting in- 1911. Can you imagine for work of the devil. This event creasing numbers of people that entire period of more was seen to widely and to use their content. How- than 250 years every month commented widely on in ever, at the same time, we at the beginning of the month China. And, although this are also very interested in and every county would have event was of course well

© 2008 COOK NETWORK CONSULTANTS 431 GREENWAY AVE. EWING, NJ 08618-2711 USA PAGE 11 THE COOK REPORT ON INTERNET PROTOCOL JULY 2008 known before the current dig- # The Cultural, Academic, completion of phase 2 in itization project, it is an ex- Socio-Economic, and Educa- 2011 was a major theme in ample of the kind of informa- tional Promotions and Appli- all my interviews in Taiwan. tion that, due to the archives cations Project Everyone quite sensibly is we have, we can enable # International Collaboration looking for ways to generate scholars to use in cross- and Promotion Project income from what has been disciplinary ways that never # Research & Development of done in order to maintain and before would be possible. Technology Project preserve the project, its in- # Network Core Platforms frastructure and its benefits Phase Two Project to Taiwanese society. At the Objectives above url we read: They are described here COOK Report: So the first http://www.ndap.org.tw/1_or “To improve the dissemina- five years have concluded g_en/p_expansion.php tion and sharing of public as- and now you are moving into sets, the NDAP is addressing phase 2. Please describe this The second of these five is the need for interaction and the Cultural, Academic, coordination between the transition. Socio-Economic, and Educa- public, academia, and archive Lin: The overall objectives tional Promotions and Appli- organizations. Efforts are be- of NDAP - Phase II fall into cations Project ing made to integrate various three major categories: An additional effort of CASE resources in order to create is described at added value in applications of (1) To showcase Taiwan’s biological, cultural, and social diversity.

(2) To promote the cultural, academic, socio- economic and educational values engendered by the NDAP.

(3) To develop an international cooperation and ex- change network, and promote awareness about Tai- wan’s cultural heritage. http://www2.ndap.org.tw/ne wsletter/news/read_news.ph p?nid=2149

There are five projects run- http://www.ndap.org.tw/1_or the archives. In addition, a ning in parallel. g_en/p_promotions.php licensing agreement has been concluded to facilitate inter- # Taiwan Digital Archives Ex- Editor’s Note: Sustainabil- national exchanges and li- pansion Project ity of the project after the censing transactions. The

NDAP attended the Licensing tion of material in a way 2007 International Expo in more meaningful to the stu- International New York under the theme dents as opposed to leading Collaboration “Creative Taiwan,” with a every student through the view to enhancing Taiwan’s same fixed set of rigid mod- Also another very important image and international posi- ules. Finding the most crea- goal of Phase Two is interna- tion. It is hoped that, through tive ways to link the content tional collaboration. See licensing agreements, Tai- of the National Digital Archive http://www.ndap.org.tw/1_or wan’s digital cultural assets project to e-learning pro- g_en/p_collaboration.php can be used to create unique grams and efforts is a very products.” important goal in Phase Two.

Lin: The application for use of the digitized content also extends very strongly into areas of education. Teachers can be trained to use this content in their classrooms. Consequently, one of the most important of these is to be integration of the work of the first five years in to a Na- tional E-learning project. Many people did not realize that viable e-learning is much more than putting content on the Web. That e-learning is not just web-based course- ware. When e-learning takes place under conditions where your teacher can be hundreds or even thousands of miles away, these conditions change the nature of the in- terchange of ideas and the role of the classroom teacher as well as the role and relationship of the students to each other.

It may become possible to have a computer program working as an agent with a student in such a way that the program learns from the interests of the students and is able to tailor the presenta- The Transition from Phase One to Phase Two in Thematic Terms

In Phase One cooperation describe the important items Institutes and museums to was done separately. Each brought from the more gen- obtain content about Taiwan project was responsible for eral union catalog into the in assisting in those institutes accomplishing its own inter- multilingual database that and museums. national collaboration. In will showcase those objects Phase Two we have an office selected for presentation as A technical description of the responsible for international part of the six general cate- phase two architecture is collaboration amongst all the gories. We are dealing with found at projects. In order for this to a schema for the multilingual http://www.twgrid.org/Applic succeed there must be a very description of an object se- ation/ndap/index_html#layou systematic way of approach- lected to be internationalized. t ing what needs to be done. To disseminate this content The content here in Taiwan is For example, because of the we use a website called really about cultural and lan- language, there is a large culture.tw. See guage diversity and about part of our content that is http://www.culture.tw/ biodiversity. Cultural diver- most readily available to sity deals with human society speakers of Chinese. Be- This is a cultural portal that is and biodiversity is about the cause our resources are lim- also associated with environment. Of course all ited, we cannot make every- culture.mondo as initiated by of these things interact with thing multilingual and we the Ministry of Culture in each other. And if you want need therefore a framework Canada. Now these efforts to preserve and to digitize to enable us to make the really predate the use and you better have all of them most effective choice of lan- adoption of Web 2.0 technol- being able to interact to- guage presentation. ogy. gether.

To obtain such a framework, We have developed a content we have reordered our collec- platform. What I just de- COOK Report: What about tion activities from 16 specific scribed is our dissemination continuing data acquisition as fields of knowledge into six platform. We also have key a part of Phase Two? It never more general categories. organizations with which we really stops, correct? Only a subset of objects se- are working. These organiza- lected on the basis of their tions already have their net- Lin: Correct. We have sent perceived importance will be works in place. For example two people who have spent a brought into this framework. how our efforts must work month in Tokyo and other For these objects everything with the global Museum people to Russia where there will be translated. In doing (MCN) Network and be com- is an institute that has large this we work carefully with patible with its efforts. collections of the East Asian the contents group and listen botany. We have people in to their suggestions. This ef- The first platform is the con- Germany at looking at insect fort is centered at National tent platform the second specimens. And people in Taiwan University, this most platform is a dissemination London at the British Mu- important University in Tai- for the third is the organiza- seum. We talk to them wan. They have assembled a tion platform and the fourth about things they may have team of about 40 people platform is designed to send from Taiwan and help them who are responsible for the people to different overseas and look at and reorganize multilingual content used to such items.

being translated with the idea this meeting. They were We now have in several divi- that the techniques that we surprised by the scale and sions and museums requests developed may be useful to scope of all the things that for proposals. We are solic- people in other countries over we were doing and they had iting proposals from people time. For example if there an enormous desire to ex- who wish to digitize their own are departments of East plore ways of using our con- content. Such a proposal Asian Studies, with people tent in their courses. may come from a small mu- who speak Chinese and are seum or even from a private interested in our content, I think that we are making collector. then we should try to figure considerable progress in es- out how to work with them. tablishing a network incentive COOK Report: You are say- program that invites people ing then to everyone – look COOK Report: So you to contribute content and -- we are doing this. If you would like to put together a when they do contribute con- have something to contrib- global East Asian Cultural tent in return they can with- ute, knock on our door. Network? draw content for their own use. Lin: Yes. We are even devel- Lin: Yes but this is not easy. oping workbooks about how However I just came back COOK Report: So you are to digitize different kinds of from a meeting in Atlanta now in year seven, what content in different catego- Georgia of East Asian schol- happens when you get to ries. In phase one each of ars. year eight and nine? the 16 different categories issued its workbook or guide- http://www.ceas.umd.edu/co Lin: We are seeing now that book that was designed to nferences.html the goal is not just the devel- show people that the best opment of cool technologies methods of digitization. We must have had over 1000 including 3-D visualization Many of these books are now people visit to our booth at but that the goal must be broader than this and involve long-term sustainability. Digital bits are very unreli- able over the long term. It is not just storage but also software as well as hardware. In some respects a piece of paper is much more durable over many years then these digital bits. There is also a problem that digitization cannot capture all the information contained in an ancient book. By this I mean such things as the chemical composition of its pages, their texture and their smell. In some instances that scholars have needed to explore the

© 2008 COOK NETWORK CONSULTANTS 431 GREENWAY AVE. EWING, NJ 08618-2711 USA PAGE 15 THE COOK REPORT ON INTERNET PROTOCOL JULY 2008 chemical composition of the point of view the disc may It is very possible that there ink in order to establish fail. A disk may also become will be no phase 3 and that in whether or not a given book unreadable because of soft- another two or three years might be a fake. ware problems. when phase 2 is finished that As we continued to digitize, what we do after that will be we must guard against issues Grid computing involving designed mainly to make of bit rot because the digital storage on inexpensive disks sure that the content we media that we use is far less is something worth looking have created survives over reliable than we have antici- at. the long term or and that we pated. From a mechanical enable more and more people to use it.

COOK Report: Doing what you have done may make it easier to convince people to invest in the development of technology for long-term preservation?

Lin: Let me put it this way. You must think ahead of technology in order to formu- late a strategy for what you need and want to do regard- less of whether the technology is yet available. It does make sense to strategize about what technologies you expect to be available and about open source software and open content but even thinking about all of this may not be sufficient. You must do everything you can to look at the economics involved in what you are doing so that the content will be widely available as well as pre- served.

Building a Foundation for Sustainability as the Goal of Phase Two Vice President Tsʼui Jung Liu

Editor’s note: Dr. Ts’ui-Jung you to explain to me your see Liu was appointed one of own vision for the project; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Academia Sinica’s Vice Presi- how you have come to be the Academia_Sinica dents on October 1st, 2003 director of stage two. And by President Yuan-tseh Lee finally what you want to ac- Building a Foundation and again on October 17, complish from this point for- for Sustainability 2006 by President Chi-huey ward? Wong. She is also Distin- Before the NDAP project guished Research Fellow of Vice President Liu: I am a started, we had already es- the Institute of Taiwan His- historian of the Ming and tablished a very large ongo- tory, Academia Sinica, since Ching Dynasty but, because ing multi-year effort of digit- October 2001. Born at about ten years ago was ap- izing important historical Changhua in central Taiwan, pointed the director of the documents here at Academia Dr. Liu earned a B.A. (1963) preparatory office of Taiwan Sinica. In one sense we ac- and a M.A. (1966) in history history, I also became famil- tually started to our digital from the National Taiwan iar with Taiwan history. I am archive project in the late University, a M.A. in East Asia an economic historian with a 1980s and early 1990s with th Regional Study (1970) and a specialization from the 15 to the digitization of many of th Ph.D. in East Asian History the 19 century. I also did the most important Chinese and Languages (1974) from research on historical demog- classics. Harvard University. For more raphy of China for the same i n f o r m a t i o n s e e period. As a part of my I was not directly involved in http://home.sinica.edu.tw/en work on Taiwan history I’ve the first five years of our Na- /about/tjliu.html. I inter- also focused on environ- tional Digital Archive Project viewed Dr. Liu on April 8, mental history. from 2002 through 2006. 2008. The Vice President who had While Academia Sinica has been in charge of the first COOK Report: Could I ask over 30 different research phase did not have his ap- institutes and pointment renewed and as a centers, one of result, the National Science o u r n e w e s t Council asked me to be re- centers is de- sponsible for the coordination voted to infor- of the second phase. mation technology and in- We are now in the seventh novation. Edi- year of this project, and while tor: For back- there are many organizations ground on Aca- that have accumulated sub- demia Sinica stantial experience of digiti-

© 2008 COOK NETWORK CONSULTANTS 431 GREENWAY AVE. EWING, NJ 08618-2711 USA PAGE 17 THE COOK REPORT ON INTERNET PROTOCOL JULY 2008 zation over the first years of COOK Report: Indeed. What Internet commerce can be a the project, there are many have the responses been? What source of funds is something new organizations that are does it seem that people are that should receive serious just now joining the effort. thinking? attention. In the first phase there were nine organizations, including Liu: I am insisting that the institu- But I think it is not suitable Academia Sinica, that were tions put into their budget money for Academia Sinica as a re- selected for work in the pro- for maintenance of the large da- search institute to do this ject. In the second phase we tabase of material that has al- work on their behalf. We can try not to focus on organiza- ready been ﬁnished. I am also only explore ways of collabo- tions. Instead we are now emphasizing that their budgets rating with them to achieve organizing by themes. These must include keeping their Inter- these ends. We try not to are: maps and architectures; net websites in good working duplicate what others are do- languages and multi-media; condition. As long as Academia ing and therefore we are left biosphere and nature; arti- Sinica is involved, I believe that with a very demanding task facts and illustrations; ar- we can maintain the very large of working with collections chives and databases; and union catalog that has been con- that are largely unique and lives and cultures. structed at this point in time. We understanding how to use the have funds for this, but new insti- technology at our disposal to Each organization that wants tutions joining do not. My role in make meaningful representa- to participate must now think working with these new institutions of them available to the about how it’s collections will tions is to help them understand world over the Internet. fit into one of the six themes. that their budgets must contain My biggest concern is how sources of money to enable the COOK Report: I am not these organizations can try to maintenance and sustainability of sure at this point how well maintain their progress over everything that they add to the this fits with your effort but I time -- that is after the na- archive. am well aware of a start-up tional program has been underway in the United completed. Property Rights -- A States that is being under- Critical Issue taken by a handful of people COOK Report: In other who are putting together an words how do you make it Internet-based commerce COOK Report : W h a t self-sustaining? thought has been given re- system design for the crea- garding these websites at this tion and sale of muse- Liu: Yes. Last year, when I be- point in time to using them um quality reproductions. gan my current role as coordina- for commerce with respect to tor, I asked that every organiza- These people are currently in the archival material they tion and facility start to think about contain? Do the people in- alpha test of a system that, how to sustain its projects after volved realize that these for example, if the National the end of the National Science websites could become like Palace Museum wanted to Councilʼs support in three more bookstores or portals for re- experiment with them in that years. In short I think that the licensing a portion of its col- productions available to peo- sustainability of this project ple anywhere in the world? lection, they could then serve and the maintenance of this as brokers at no cost to the huge collection is the most im- Liu: The question you raise National Palace Museum for portant task in front of us. about examining whether the online sale of fine art prints of museum artifacts to

© 2008 COOK NETWORK CONSULTANTS 431 GREENWAY AVE. EWING, NJ 08618-2711 USA PAGE 18 THE COOK REPORT ON INTERNET PROTOCOL JULY 2008 the world and do this in a this research database is way that the museum would Commercialization more important than com- get a reasonable return for versus Research mercialized use. And doing so the resale rights of its intel- is important especially for lectual property. It would be Priorities researchers who now can use analogous to extending the this kind of archive in ways Liu: While you are here you gift shop at an institution like not possible before. may see the archived collec- the National Palace Museum tion of our Institute of History to the entire world. If it COOK Report: In other and Philology which has the worked as intended, it could words in the research use is largest collection of our his- establish a regular and reli- primary and if commercializa- torical documents. I think able cash flow to the Museum tion harms that in any way that the most important us- for the use of its intellectual you would not engage in the age for the archives of this property. commercialization. However, institute will be for academic if you can commercialize research. We have a very im- Does this make sense? without harming it, and get portant and unique collection from that commercial activity, for both humanities and so- Liu: Yes it makes sense. But a sustaining cash flow that cial sciences research. I the most important thing is will enable you to continue think that making these first to establish the property your research mission, this documents available to a rights. This why, in the sec- would be desirable? broader range of people is ond phase this year, we are one of our most important trying to identify all the prop- Liu: Yes. That is correct. tasks as a part of our overall erty rights in a legal way. mission. Each participating Institute, Crossing Boundaries as a part of their digital ar- COOK Report: Let me see if chives, must now create and I can understand what some COOK Report: What in- include a legal description of of the possibilities are. If you trigues me is the way in the property rights for the get these collections digit- which in comparison to other archived item. This is to ized, with common metadata, digital archiving projects in make sure that, once other you can mix them and do the world, you here in Taiwan commercial companies iden- mash-ups and can put things are crossing organizational tify the collection the prop- on top of each other which boundaries and boundaries of erty rights inherent in the can show relationships and knowledge in ways that no item can be assured and cause-and-effect that would one has done before. How given protection. This prop- be impossible to discover in did this boundary crossing erty right issue has to be any other way. To give an- happen? solved first before anything other example you might else meaningful can be done have climate data and the Liu: It happened in part be- to engage in commerce. price of rice and could corre- cause in all our institutions late how that varies with po- within Academia Sinica we COOK Report: Have you litical unrest in a geographic have collections of insects described your own property area? and birds and animals and rights criteria? plants and examples of all Liu: Yes. For the mission of kinds of human knowledge. Liu: The work is in progress Academia Sinica, providing but not yet completed.

In the late 80s and early 90s Liu: If you are a historian on terials. But now if they are when we started to experi- the mainland and your re- available over the Internet ment with digitization, the search topic in Ming or Ching they can use them much Director of our computing history has to rely on the ar- more productively and with Center Dr. Hsieh, had very chives of those dynasties, the investment of less time at good insight into the possi- before digitization they would less expense. These dynastic bilities. He decided to start have to come to Taipei in or- archives are not our only re- with the digitization of the 25 der to have access to the sources. We also have digit- dynastic histories of China. documents and use them. ized the archives of the Japa- After that was done, histori- But after digitization, as long nese colonial government in ans could search in a fraction as there is access to the Taiwan. of a second through vast Internet, they do not have to amounts of material in ways come and spend many weeks COOK Report: Many thanks that never could be done be- in Taipei in order to use the for these insights into your fore. You could see how the material. fascinating work. use of a term changed through time and changed COOK Report: if the histo- from one place to another. rian on the mainland doesn’t Later on we did the 13 Chi- have to be worried about po- nese classics. And we also litical interference, he would digitized our archives. These think “wow this is great that I are the archives of the grand can have Internet access to secretaries of the Ming and this material” However, might Ching dynasties. These ar- Party people complain? chives from the mainland include the documents from Liu: They might. But if they the Ministry of Foreign Affairs did, people on the mainland and the Ministry of Econom- and here in the academic ics. world would likely not pay much attention. Also realize COOK Report: I’m sitting again that many Western here wondering what the scholars who study Chinese scholars in Beijing are think- history have to take the time ing about what you are do- and expense to come here to ing? our libraries to use these ma-

© 2008 COOK NETWORK CONSULTANTS 431 GREENWAY AVE. EWING, NJ 08618-2711 USA PAGE 20 THE COOK REPORT ON INTERNET PROTOCOL JULY 2008 Bringing Taiwan’s Premier Museum into the Digital Age Dr. James Lin at the National Palace Museum

Editor’s Note: James Quo- a company seeking invest- seven different courses nec- Ping Lin is Head of Visitor ment in technology compa- essary to take before the ex- Service Division National Pal- nies in Taipei and in main- ams could be attempted and ace Museum, Taipei, Taiwan. land China. In the United in this sense I suppose it is a he is also Secretary-General, States in the early 1990s I traditional part of Chinese Chinese Association of Muse- completed both a Master’s culture involving service to ums and Vice-President, degree and Ph.D. in Com- the government. You must MCN-Taiwan Chapter. I inter- puter Science at the Univer- know Civil and Constitutional viewed him in his office on sity of Missouri. I came Law, and economics. Not to April 10, 2008. back to Taipei and taught, mention government finance. mainly in computer science COOK Report: Tell me but also in information man- COOK Report: This cross- something about how you agement and electronic disciplinary experience that came to be here at the mu- commerce. Actually, I even you have seems to be a seum. wrote a book about market- common trait among many of ing information systems. the people involved in the Lin: I have been at the mu- Digital Archive Project includ- seum for almost 5 years. Be- Summing up, I have a back- ing Simon Lin and Vice Presi- fore that I was the Chair in ground in computer science dent Liu. The leaders here the Department of Informa- and the marketing in the pri- are surely foxes in the full tion Management at a private vate sector and even in fi- term of the meaning of Isaiah university in Taipei for almost nance and taxation. I had Berlin’s essay of literary criti- 6 years. And previous to taken the national examina- cism called to the Hedgehog this I worked in the private tion in taxation as a specialty and the Fox. I think that the sector doing due diligence for qualifying me for government cross-disciplinary experience service. that you just described to me is very necessary to enable C O O K R e- you to do the job you are do- port: Was ing. t h i s t h e modern-day Lin: Yes that is true. While equivalent of you may focus on certain ar- exams for the eas, it is often necessary to Confucian bu- be able to cross disciplines in reaucracy in order to be able to under- the old China? stand each other.

Lin: W e l l Five years ago I was not t h e r e w e r e planning to come to the mu-

© 2008 COOK NETWORK CONSULTANTS 431 GREENWAY AVE. EWING, NJ 08618-2711 USA PAGE 21 THE COOK REPORT ON INTERNET PROTOCOL JULY 2008 seum. They actually called of these pictures? What are good at IT; at designing and me because they had in mind we using all of these comput- manufacturing computer’s exploring ways to market to ers for? And you know these and the same with laptops. the attractions of the mu- are the very questions that seum. They had started the 10 years earlier were being Supplying computer chips project around 2001. The asked as digital technology and laptops and all kinds of opening at the end of 2002 spread throughout industry. computer hardware to the was created by the retire- Then companies were asking rest of the world has become ment of the previous man- why do we invest in automa- our technology and economic ager of the information man- tion and wondering why do advantage. Sustaining that agement division. we not just continue to use competitive advantage is a our labor and work in the old critical underlying rationale of When I started here then in ways? the E-Taiwan project. Conse- early 2003 I received quite a quently everyone in the mu- shock, because the scope of What we’ve seen is just a seum has become familiar the project is as you said shift of this managerial para- with technology and under- really huge. It spans cul- digm in different sectors at stands how to use comput- ture, technology, and man- different times. Museums ers. Everyone is using Inter- agement. It is really quite are lagging behind the rest of net and e-mail and since they complex. society by a good 10 years. are doing this we can come So the question then for me to them and say let’s take The Role of the was how to persuade all of these additional approaches Internet in the Future the museum staff to change with our exhibits to go even their way of thinking about further to help your research, of NPM the very nature of their work. to help your merchandising, When we approached them, to help your promotional out- COOK Report: A quick we had to tell them formally reach and educational pro- question. I get the impres- that these projects all basi- grams. sion that at the beginning of cally come from the top down the 21st-century museum as government policy. There- But on top of all this you management in the face of fore if you want to continue have to add interpersonal re- the Internet is looking at a to hold your job, you must lationships which are very big revolution and every mu- accept the new policy and important. My position is seum manager is trying to change your approach to something like that of a guru figure out how to cope. what you do. or a magnet to encourage everyone to stick together. Lin: To change or not to This was part of a national change? strategy because Taiwan is COOK Report: You articu- very special. We do not have late a vision -- a vision that COOK Report: Yes how do many natural resources. So sees the possibilities. you remain meaningful? over the past 40 years we emphasized the role of indus- Lin: Yes. There is no way I Lin: Yes when I got here in try producing everything that would say I am the Director 2003, people were having 20 years ago you would find of the Information Center and serious discussions. Why are in all of these world markets. therefore you must follow me we spending all of this money But now times have changed because I have all this money on technology and taking all and we have become very and I must find out how to

© 2008 COOK NETWORK CONSULTANTS 431 GREENWAY AVE. EWING, NJ 08618-2711 USA PAGE 22 THE COOK REPORT ON INTERNET PROTOCOL JULY 2008 engage you to help me spend what I say. I don’t like to by government grade. You it. Rather than direct orders think in this way. don’t have the right to pro- I articulate a vision. mote them because promo- COOK Report: I am begin- tions must happen according COOK Report: This reminds ning to think that because to prescribed procedure. of my conversation with Si- the Internet is such a power- Consequently, under these mon in Hawaii when I inter- ful tool in the end for ena- conditions, the only reason- viewed him the first time al- bling collaboration and coop- able course for a manager is most three years ago and he eration, those entities that leadership and friendship and mentioned the leadership learn how to excel in these showing the direction. If style of being careful not to areas will perform all the you can do this and show own something. more strongly and with better those with whom you are results than those who ad- working how they will bene- Lin: Yes. Let it go and you here to the old command fit, they will follow you. have everything. Hold on and style of the 20th century. you hold onto nothing. Ac- The Mega-Projects tually I don’t think this phi- Lin: This may well be true, Give Way to losophy is particularly east- but one must also be aware ern. I have seen it in the of the context in which one Ubiquitous Networked United States. And it has operates. For example this Society really, I think, something to museum is governmental and do with the nature of the or- lives by projects. You have So back to the scope and ganization for which you to persuade people to work scale of these three mega- happen to work. For us, in with you without being able projects. We have the Na- Taiwan, it is really difficult to to command them. You tional Digital Archive pro- dominate and say to others don’t have the ability to raise gram. We also have the e- I’m the boss you must do their salary because it is set Museum program. And finally we have the e- learning program -- all operating out of different project offices. Since 2001 and we have been spending approximately US$8 million per year. This spending started in 2001 and finished last year in 2007. It covers all three programs.

For the National Digital Archive Project we have digitized about on tenth of our collection of 650,000 objects. In what we call our 3-D collection (three- dimensional objects or James brings an infectious enthusiasm to his work. This picture is from the first time I met him in November 2005 in Hawaii. © 2008 COOK NETWORK CONSULTANTS 431 GREENWAY AVE. EWING, NJ 08618-2711 USA PAGE 23 THE COOK REPORT ON INTERNET PROTOCOL JULY 2008 artifacts) we have about ronment. 70,000 items. Of this 70,000 we have digitized approxi- T h e c e n t r a l mately 25,000. In painting g o v e r n m e n t and calligraphy we have has a new pro- around 12,000 sets and have ject and that it digitized approximately half calls the Ubiq- of these. We divide our col- u i t o u s N e t- lection into three categories. worked Society. There are what I referred to The National as 3-D objects or antiquities. Palace Museum For painting and calligraphy is a part of this and also photographs we n e w g o v e r n- have about 12,000 sets. And ment project. we call them sets because they can have many pieces or COOK Report: pages. The remainder of Tell me a little about 590,000 would be bit more composed of documents, rare books and maps Lin: About how ubiquitous COOK Report: is it correct it is? that almost your entire collection came from the main- COOK Report: land as a result of the last About what you century’s civil war? envision.

Lin: yes. Almost all. About Lin: Well it is 95%. What I call the three quite a chal- The museum has an extraordinary collection of artifacts mega projects all finished in lenge for us. from Tibet dating from the year 700 AD onwards. 2007. With the beginning of As you can see 2008 the E-Taiwan project the idea of truly ubiquitous is associated with billable has ended and the E- learn- not practical so far. events. There are the carriers ing project is combined with very precisely specify exactly the Digital Archive Program COOK Report: But it’s get- what a cell phone can do and into a new program called ting there. cannot do. I don’t know any- TELDAP. (Taiwan E-learning thing about the Taiwan car- and Digital Archive Program). Lin: Yes -- like WiFi head- rier but how is it here? We still have the scanning phones that you can hook up and digital archive work on to the Internet. And like a Lin: The same. Except that going. We have another new PDA that it would work with when we go to the States our project called U Taiwan pro- your cell phone. cell phones and WiFi devices ject. U for Ubiquitous which and laptops do work very is the buzzword. Meanwhile, COOK Report: Anything well. In Taiwan I think we moving one step ahead we with mobility and cell phones, have among the very highest are combining e-learning and at least in the United States density of cell phone users in mobile into a ubiquitous envi- and in Europe, tends to be the world. There are 23 mil-

© 2008 COOK NETWORK CONSULTANTS 431 GREENWAY AVE. EWING, NJ 08618-2711 USA PAGE 24 THE COOK REPORT ON INTERNET PROTOCOL JULY 2008 lion people on this island and more than 23 million registered cell phones.

COOK Report: What are there restrictions placed by the carriers on the use of these cell phones from what back home we would call the walled-garden mentality. And that is the desire on the part of the carrier to create his many billable events and increase the average revenue per user as much as possible?

Lin: Yes but I don’t notice many complaints. More important in my opinion is the governments pushing us to go forward and build the networked society. The goal is for all these industries to be able to come together the Carved miniatures from the 17th and 18 century include, as shown above, the olive device builders and the users pit boat with human occupants. to share in the creation of what is possible in a ubiqui- Lin: And we are trying to Lin: If you view this project tous network society. They show some of the things that from the perspective of the are trying to create for the can be done with this tech- central government, you will users and for the industry nology. You may see what find out that it does indeed people as well a vision of we have done by viewing the want to use it to return value what is possible with the use DVDs we have made and by to society at large because of these devices. exploring our related web we have so many designers, sites. producers, and manufactur- So What Do You Do ers of these new devices here with All this COOK Report: But to ex- in Taiwan. Even though Technology? plore this technology to the much of this technology is full potential do you have to only in the very early stages COOK Report: In a sense change the expectations of of adoption, the govern- they are saying to society to the carriers so that they are ment’s program nevertheless experiment and find out what beginning to think more in can help to promote its can be done with technology terms of returning value to a spread. that is basically the new eco- productive society rather nomic infrastructure for the than just to their sharehold- The Palace Museum has now 21st century. ers? become a more than just a museum. In many respects

they do it by subsi- devices by creating show- dizing the manufac- cases at places like the Na- turers. And sec- tional Palace Museum or even ond they put adver- places like the highway de- tisements on TV to partment where they want show people at that people to use RFID devices. beneficial optical Now we are also going to be- fiber networks are gin doing the same thing. available now. The advertisements talk We will begin to use RFID in about all the ways our museum tickets. When in which these fiber our visitors have RFID tick- networks can be ets, we effectively can tag used. They even them and track them and make a song about know what they’re doing in- it. They make side the museum and how sure that everyone long they spend in front of understands that a any object. How they move fiber-optic network around the museum. Traffic is available to their control within the museum is apartments be- totally out of control. Our cause they want current situation is that we p e o p l e t o b u y don’t know anything about them, connect to any of this. Right now we them and use them only know how many tickets The God of Examinations in order that the de- are sold on a given day. We it is a showcase of Taiwanese vices (computers don’t even know how many technology. We can take and peripherals) being made people buy a ticket and actu- these technology devices and by the technology companies ally use it. use them in this museum and for this purpose will also sell. the world will notice. COOK Report: This capabil- What they are trying to over- ity might even affect how you The government wants to come in the public mind is arrange the exhibits within help all of these manufactur- the whole question of why do the museum itself? ers and the carriers. And the I need Optical when I have way they do it from the policy ADSL? Why is not that good Lin: Yes. Every day we have side is to have all these new enough? to face this problem. Which projects to show people how exhibition is most popular we can utilize these things. The Ubiquitous and is this new exhibition But at the same time from NPM - RFID in working? We have to keep thinking about how people the marketing side you have Museum Tickets to show people – not how move around in our galleries efficient these devices are – and how we can streamline This is how we approach this movement. but rather how useful they these matters. We have na- are. So they do it by going in tional policies to help the COOK Report: But because two directions at once. First manufacturers play with new this is a part of human psy-

© 2008 COOK NETWORK CONSULTANTS 431 GREENWAY AVE. EWING, NJ 08618-2711 USA PAGE 26 THE COOK REPORT ON INTERNET PROTOCOL JULY 2008 chology, you must do it without them feeling they are being pushed and manipulated and controlled.

Lin: Exactly. It should be an approach that to the visitor is transparent. The user must be unaware of what is happening. You just buy a ticket and walk up to an artifact with your WiFi headphones and received from that artifact some audio and even an image file if you have a PDA.

We will be able to acquire all this data and use it to help our facility function more smoothly as well as to raise the satisfaction of the visitors. The quality of service you provide for your visitors, for your customers in effect, is very important.

COOK Report: Tell me then in more detail what the ubiquitous National Palace Mu- seum will look like.

Lin: The whole museum will be covered in WiFi. And probably later on in that Wi- Max. So when you walk in with any kind of WiFi device we can collect information. From the museum’s point of view we can collect all the information we need to and from the visitor’s point of view they can receive all manner of useful information. For example as a visitor you may want to know where you are and which way to go. Of the galleries within say 50 The Famous Ivory Ball © 2008 COOK NETWORK CONSULTANTS 431 GREENWAY AVE. EWING, NJ 08618-2711 USA PAGE 27 THE COOK REPORT ON INTERNET PROTOCOL JULY 2008

c o l l e c t i o n s go. Especially within the re- and be able stricted area -- because we to keep that need to keep all these arti- i nformati on facts safe. To keep our se- for their own curity systems solid we need use just like to be able to survey the ac- you. When tions of everyone inside the y o u w a l k I museum. So imagine then want to take the goal of a ubiquitous net- a picture? Do work society. A very big you want to question for us is how we keep a record may move towards this goal. of what ob- j e c t s y o u Let me make another point. have seen? In a museum like the Metro- A n d m a y b e politan in New York wherever on your way you have primarily physical h o m e y o u objects and oil paintings, the want to call question of temperature and up informa- humidity may not be that im- tion relating portant. But for this museum to what you and the treasures we have h a v e s e e n ? within involving calligraphy Everything is parchment ink temperature possible now. and humidity control can be critical issues in preservation. From the mu- Some of our calligraphy is seum’s point 1000 years old. We also have o f v i e w w e bronzeware that is quite sen- need to know sitive to humidity. how the visitors interact We have devices to measure with our exhi- humidity in every display bitions. From case. But these devices are the preserva- not networked. Their read- tionist point ings must be taken individu- o f v i e w w e ally one by one by a staff need to moni- member who walks from case tor the tem- to case. This happens every Imperial Porcelain perature in the hour and it seems to be a meters of where you are room and the cumbersome and efficient which is the most highly temperature and humidity in way of gathering data. We rated and on the other hand the showcase. And to do all also have a museum wide which is the most crowded? this in real time. We may air-conditioning system but also want to keep track of our to no means of determining But they may also want to staff and how they move the uniformity of temperature receive information about the around. How they come and delivery. The best thing you

© 2008 COOK NETWORK CONSULTANTS 431 GREENWAY AVE. EWING, NJ 08618-2711 USA PAGE 28 THE COOK REPORT ON INTERNET PROTOCOL JULY 2008 can say is that we have now one of the most important The critical issue however is a kind of macro climate con- criteria for the second phase that this imaginary program trol. of this project was the issue is in the private sector where, of sustainability. How do as the boss, you can require To do what we must for pres- you handle things here in the many more actions of your ervation with what we have Museum in order to be able employees than you can in now, we need a heavy com- to continue your programs, the public or government ponent of manual involve- should government funding sector. There are more ways ment. What we would like go away? of motivating people in the therefore is a data collection private sector then there are and data transmitting device Lin: Indeed this is a critical in the public sector. But let’s that would tell you the tem- issue and TELDAP is not a bring the need for sustain- perature and humidity per- part of UNS or Ubiquitous ability back to the National haps ten times every second. Network Society. It is a na- Digital Archive program. All The ability to collect this data tional technology project of of these big institutes are essentially in real time would the National Science Council governmental. That means enable us to make a more and in this respect is com- the salary of your staff is rapid response when prob- pletely separate from the fixed. You cannot motivate lems arise. This technology is Ubiquitous Networked Society them by using project money already here and what we program. None of these to give them bonuses if they must do now is bring it into projects will have a phase figure out how to be self sus- the museum and put it to use three. Therefore everyone in taining. If you develop a as a part of the second phase Phase Two must think about cash flow while carrying on of the preservation projects I how to become self- your part of the project, can am telling you about in order sustaining. you invest this cash flow in to raise immediately the the project yourself? No, be- quality of all our preservation To look at how this affects us, cause the budgetary system work. let’s assume for a moment will not permit it. Budgets that you run a private com- have to be planned a year in We also think that the tech- pany and you go to your advance and maintained very nology I am telling you mom and dad and say “hey, rigidly. The problem then is about, if we adopted here in give me some money for dig- who will be motivated to do a successful test bed, can be itization.” The critical ques- creative things on behalf of exported to other museums tion then becomes what will sustainability without some and libraries around the you do when they stop giving assurance that what he does world. you money? So you will will be able to make a differ- think that you will keep ence? Sustainability – spending the money as it Private versus Public comes in. But you will also You have to think then about design a way so that you can how the national Palace Mu- Sector begin to earn a foundation for seum can benefit from this your own income as you con- project money, not only for COOK Report: I completely tinue toward the end of the research, not only for mu- understand, but there is an- second and final phase of the seum management and not other issue that came out in project. only for museum merchan- my discussion with Vice dising and certainly not for President Liu who said that sustainability alone. But also

© 2008 COOK NETWORK CONSULTANTS 431 GREENWAY AVE. EWING, NJ 08618-2711 USA PAGE 29 THE COOK REPORT ON INTERNET PROTOCOL JULY 2008 for your personnel. How to Then you may keep a $500 explainable in one or two benefit your workers as well? from it for your own use sentences. A licensee, in ef- It is a whole spectrum prob- while the remaining $500 fect, will be able to write its lem. So the question is how goes into a competitive fund own license giving it to the can you break through all from which entities with pro- power to create a license with these barriers? Budgetary? jects of their own that are which it is comfortable. But if Personnel? Regulatory? designed to create sustain- the licensee does this and able development may apply. gives them the right to resell The problem is -- where the Is this the best way to pro- reproductions of part of its money goes. We can earn ceed? It is what we have es- collection, then for the Palace money. We can sell pictures. tablished now but it may not Museum, it would be as We can license image files. be the only desirable alterna- though your gift shop had It is a matter then of what tive. been extended by the Inter- you do with the income you net to the entire world. have. Under the traditional For example, in the future it way you have to give every may not be necessary to be a Lin: If they want to talk with dollar that you earn back to 100% governmentally funded us about licensing our con- the treasury. But the Palace organization. We could tent and expand what they are doing they are welcome Museum has the privilege of choose the direction of the to sit down with us and we setting up a foundation. Un- Metropolitan Museum in New will be happy to have discus- fortunately that foundation is York with a Board of Trustees sions with them. We have a only allowed to purchase arti- and part of their money from new division called the Cul- facts. The foundation is for- the central government part tural Marketing Division. I bidden to use income that it from the city and part that could put you in contact with generates for museum opera- they earn for themselves. them and then they could tions. Since we have a pot We could go in that direction, send the division a proposal of money and anything that but it will take a long time to for they would like to do. we do to increase the amount organize and build. of money in that cloud we COOK Report: That sounds have to give back to the na- What would your suggestion good. I remember the intel- tional treasury, we need to be? lectual property right empha- find an alternative approach. sis on the National Palace We give part of our income to COOK Report: D av i d Museum DVD and the main- the foundation that acquires Hughes whom I’ve known for tenance of Certificates of artifacts, but what about the more than 15 years is work- Authenticity. rest? We have created a ing with a small group of new foundation and call it a people on a company called Lin: That is not the real scientific and innovative in- Visual Arts Systems Inc. and problem. It is that whatever vestment fund under the has, I believe, some very money we make we have to auspices of the National Sci- creative ideas designed to give back to the government. ence Council. accommodate the needs of institutions in the museum For these legal issues solutions can always be found. This fund, as established by world that are willing to con- Consequently I really don’t the National Science Council, sider doing commerce on the Internet. The system that think this is the problem. It runs under a circulation will be solved. There should model. If you earn $1000, they have built is quite complex but extremely well be a way to streamline the then the income may be whole production process and placed in this foundation. thought out and not easily

make a very good profit out the Palace Museum for many reengineering process. We of this I believe. years. The Japanese com- have four new divisions es- pany intends to do the same tablished. The Cultural Mar- Our Cultural Marketing Divi- thing. They have been work- keting Division. A Security sion has just been created to ing on this for quite a while. I Division and a Visitor Serv- work on these issues (on-line don’t speak for the other di- ices Division. Finally, an Edu- cational Out- reach Division. In other words w e h a v e f o u r n e w d i v i s i o n s and three old divisions. The first old division being antiquities; t h e s e c o n d , painting and calligraphy; and the third, documen- tation and rare b o o k s . T h e three older divisions are all a research ori- ented and run by curators. I am now in charge of the new Visitors’ A portion of the NPM exterior Service Division. marketing and intellectual vision, but I think it would be The information property rights) consequently interested in talking to an center and the whole tech- they are very cautious and entity that clearly knew what nology side of things is now conservative about what they it was doing. They would be found in the educational out- do. Someday I certainly welcome to e-mail me with reach division. I have very think we will work with high- any information that they good relations with the cul- end art providers. wish and I would be happy to ture and marketing division forward it to our new divi- and will be happy to pass on COOK Report: Well, they sion. Because I am not your information regarding propose to make available working for that new division, what could be sustainability not only the high-quality digi- I can only forward the infor- solutions for the museum to tal image and the museum mation to them and let them the appropriate people there. quality prints from the image talk directly. We can certainly talk with file to an entire digital history them about this cooperation of the object. A Museum possibility in the future. Reorganization Lin: This reminds me very much of a Japanese company You see it was only last week that has been working with that we had an organizational

© 2008 COOK NETWORK CONSULTANTS 431 GREENWAY AVE. EWING, NJ 08618-2711 USA PAGE 31 THE COOK REPORT ON INTERNET PROTOCOL JULY 2008 Institute of Philology and History Focuses on Outreach and Property Rights Solutions A Conversation with Dr. Pengshen Chiu

Editor’s Introduction: Dr. thropology, was added soon F o r m o r e d e t a i l s e e Pengshen Chiu is Associate afterwards. http://www.ihp.sinica.edu.tw Research Fellow, Institute of /english/introduction.html History and Philology (IHP), IHP has developed one of the Academia Sinica, Taipei. The largest collections of digital The Role of the institute possesses vast digi- resources available in Chi- Institute of History tal collections of Chinese his- nese and Taiwanese Studies. torical texts and images, an Digitalization work began in and Philology outstanding museum of Chi- 1985 with the “Historical COOK Report: Is it correct nese history and an exhibi- Documents Digitalization Pro- that the Institute of History tion room of Taiwanese ar- ject.” The scope of IHP digi- and Philology in Academia chaeology. IHP, inaugurated talization later expanded to Sinica holds the archives of in 1928, was Academia include the creation of a full- many of the Chinese emper- Sinica's first institute. It was text database of Chinese ors? initially housed on the cam- documents called Scripta pus of Sun Yat-sen University Sinica , which has attracted Chiu: It holds some very im- in Canton; it moved to Peking the attention of the interna- portant archives of the Ch’ing in 1929 and then on to Nan- tional community in Chinese Dynasty emperors from the ching in 1934, joining the studies. The Institute joined 17th century through 1911. other institutes within Aca- the National Science Council's These archives of the Grand demia Sinica already estab- “National Digital Archives Secretariat currently housed lished there. At the outset, Program” in 2001, using the at the Institute were origi- the Institute had three de- allocated funding to digitalize nally kept at the Grand Sec- partments: history, linguis- materials in five areas: rare retariat Storehouse in the tics, and archaeology; a books, archaeological arti- Ch’ing imperial palace. In fourth, the department of an- facts, ink rubbings and an- 1929, the Institute purchased cient scripts, them from Li Sheng-to, a ethnol ogi cal book collector, thanks to the data, and the efforts of Fu Ssu-nien, the archives of the Institute’s first director. The Ch'ing Grand exhibition in this area is di- S e c r e t a r i a t . vided into three topics: “ The Some of these Manchu State” “Official resources are Documents,” and “ Govern- already avail- ment Examinations.” The ex- able online, hibition includes not only im- accessible via perial decrees, edicts, memo- the Institute rials, tribute documents and website. other documents from the

© 2008 COOK NETWORK CONSULTANTS 431 GREENWAY AVE. EWING, NJ 08618-2711 USA PAGE 32 THE COOK REPORT ON INTERNET PROTOCOL JULY 2008 office of the Grand Secretar- on institutional, political and (the study of the origin of the iat and offices of book compi- economic practices in the Chinese written language as lation, but also examination Ch’ing dynasty. More infor- derived from inscriptions on questions, examination pa- mation is available at Oracle bones that date back pers, rosters of successful http://museum.sinica.edu.tw four to five thousand years) examination candidates, and /eng/b/b.htm and anthropology. This insti- even large and small placards tute also really witnessed the of the palace examination. This Institute is made up of founding of the academic dis- The archives are highly valu- four divisions. They are: Ar- cipline of archaeology. We able for the light they shed chaeology, history, philology, have many archaeologists on our staff and we engaged in much archaeological exploration on the mainland in the late 20s and 1930s.

COOK Report: Obviously you’ll are digitizing scrolls and books, but what else is being digitized in your Insti- tute?

Chiu: We have significant collections related to ethnography in the study of the aboriginal peoples of mainland China in the southwestern part of China. We have a large collection of photographs from the early part of the last century and clothing as well and we are digitizing both categories.

COOK Report: In another words you put the costume on a mannequin and take a high-resolution photograph of the result?

Chiu: Yes. The photographs include lots of metadata about the aboriginal peoples and the website has become quite popular. With archaeology sites we try to show the Internet user how the From the IHP Museumʼs Ethnography Collection sites were originally seen

from the eyes of the archae- size of perhaps 600 by 900 over the Internet. ologist. pixels; and industrial size of 2000 by 3000 pixels; and an It seems this raising of an Intellectual Property archival size of 4000 x 6000 almost “carrier-like” walled Once More pixels. garden is undermining the entire purpose. And I under- Now this has been very hard stand that for everything COOK Report: Now that I am completing my round of for me to understand. Be- other than the very small interviews and discussions cause since the founding of publicly available picture you here, one of the most inter- my newsletter back in 1992 I need written permission to esting surprises to me has been taking the Internet access the larger version? point of view of things that This seems very strange and been the primacy of the questions regarding intellec- says then you must give I’m not quite clear what cura- tual property. I had naively away enough to catch a per- tors are trying to defend. It’s assumed that you digitized son’s interest. I saw the im- like the monks with their il- your collections and just put age of the jadeite cabbage in luminated books in the me- the Union catalog that is dieval monastery. they guard them on the Internet. Now I see that this assumption is available to the public and it their treasure and keep the very incorrect. I’ve been is ridiculously small. It rabble away. Can you help told by friends in the US that doesn’t give any real idea of me understand where this this is a part of museum cul- the richly translucent color of policy comes from and why the original. (this struck me the attitudes are what they ture around the world and is by no means confined just to when I did see the original are? Taiwan. Going along with for the first time. And here I this tendency to guard and had thought that the goal of Chiu: Many institutes with so not let go has been my dis- the digital archive project many different persons and was to make Taiwan’s cultural points of view are involved in covery that there are three sizes of photographs. A public treasures available – pre- this project. It has been dif- sumably in their full glory – ficult to bring them to any generally agreed upon posi- The Famed Jadeite Cabbage tion. During the first five years we tried to persuade Editor’s Note: Some further use of Google turned up them to give the digital rights http://www.npm.gov.tw/exh96/Dazzling/descriptions04_en.html with an for all the digitized objects to additional virtual reality carving of the cabbage. A decent sized image is show people for free over the found at Internet. In our dealings www.npm.gov.tw/.../adventure/images/b_13.jpg It is larger than the with the respective institutes union catalogue image. This New York Times article gives an interesting hint of the extremely conservative cultural heritage of the museum we tried to promote the ideas http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/28/arts/design/28muse.html?pagewan of Larry Lessig’s creative ted=1 Commons.

Quoting from the Times: “And after many years of hiding its most valu- This remains however a criti- able and most fragile artworks — those from the Northern and Southern cal and undecided issue. We Sung dynasties that ruled China from 960 to 1279 — the museum has have a legal expert who is a brought them out for a “Grand View” exhibition that opened on Christ- graduate of the University of mas. . . . . The presentation of the Ju Ware is raising eyebrows at a mu- Chicago Law school and who seum so conservative that many of the curators wore the traditional blue silk robes of Chinese scholars into the 1970s.”

actual cash income than could be had from hoarding them.

Chiu: It would be much better to strive for a win-win situation. Is it possible? I hope. We anticipate an outcome where both the owner and the Internet user could derive value.

I am in charge of another project where for example, if one institute owned 100 items, the site would give an index with links to very high A dragon lid to a water jar from the IHP museum collection definition photos. But this is much involved with the en- property status of every item will only be an Internet index tire creative Commons effort. that they digitize and to so that a surfer can find out Larry Lessig himself is her specify what they would like what good things you have. adviser and she teaches now to be the criteria for making And having found out the at National Taiwan University. them available over the surfer would be shown how Internet. to seek further collaboration COOK Report: What I hear with the owner of the object. you say is that she is the http://pnclink.org:8080/pnc2 The owners might give away person who is deciding the 006/Presentation%20materia 10 or 20% of the information development of your policy l/D%20Archives%20--%20Li in all the details of the object for dealing with intellectual u%20Ching%20yi.pdf - is a in order to entice surfers who property rights for the entire sample of her thinking about were interested to contact National Digital Archive Pro- 18 months ago. directly the owners and open gram. And then presumably discussions with them about she would be directly advis- COOK Report: To me the what interests both of them. ing Vice President Liu about irony is that most people fear This then describes a policy this. the Internet as a loss of value that we might begin to ex- for the availability of these plore. Chiu: Yes. We all work to- items from which they would gether as a team and closely like to gain a return. COOK Report: This sounds collaborate with one another. very good indeed and I am She has the same family Chiu: Yes. You are right. sitting here and smiling be- name as Vice President Liu. cause I have some American She is Doctor Ching Yi Liu. COOK Report: Very few friends who are in the midst We are doing a survey with people understand how to of developing a really sophis- the institutes with which we use the Internet to do some ticated very good mechanism work. we are asking them to sharing and in the end to for this mutual collaboration inform us of the intellectual gain much more value and and sharing of fine art over the Internet.

Now my question for you is that if the National Palace Museum or if your Institute were working with an organization like this and selling fine quality reproductions over the Internet and getting a cash flow in return that could be used for sustainability of your continued digitization projects, what would the legal situation be here in Tai- wan for the National Palace Museum or for your Institute under a set of hypothetical circumstances like this?

From what James Lin said it sounded to me as though because the government was the source of funding for these activities, it would be quite difficult for the institution to act in an independent way to generate its own cash flow by means of commercial activity of this sort.

Chiu: It is hard to say. We are certainly on the cutting edge of this kind of transac- Book Digitization at the Institute of History and Philology tion. And as you know we have many different objects. If the National Palace Mu- we have quite a few libraries When I interviewed Vice seum signed a licensing with rare books that have al- President Liu, I asked her agreement to make their im- ready digitized almost all of what’s the objective was for ages available over the Inter- their collections. But right the second five years of the net in return for the appro- now each library has put up project. Unhesitatingly she priate fees when reproduc- an independent index on an said “sustainability” after tions were sold, one of the independent website. Con- government funding goes outcomes would be to expand sequently what we are be- away. In this instance intel- their museum store to “con- ginning to do is to develop a lectual property issues are tain” the best objects in the website where people can totally critical. collection and to make that answer an appropriate key- expanded store globally word match will help them available over the Internet. find on these other websites

© 2008 COOK NETWORK CONSULTANTS 431 GREENWAY AVE. EWING, NJ 08618-2711 USA PAGE 36 THE COOK REPORT ON INTERNET PROTOCOL JULY 2008 documents they are looking the object over the Internet. Digital Archive Project to lev- for. All we are doing is providing erage the interest of Internet an interface between the two. users worldwide in the avail- For example a search might And the index that will allow ability of the finest high- generate results of 15 differ- the owner of the object to quality images in driving the ent books in five different li- display on the Internet what demand for ever better dis- braries. It would function as it has available for Internet plays. a book finder. In other users to discover, learn words, it would give you in- about, and benefit from. As Another interesting aspect formation about their quality an interface provider we want though of this business model and their selling price evalua- to provide free use to all is the decentralization be- tions of readers. It would Internet users. tween buyer and seller that offer cross references to the ought to make the develop- material from the writings of Editor’s note: What Dr. Chiu ment of a sustainable cash other books and authorities. is saying essentially is that he flow much easier. The licens- It would be a large index and wants to provide what VSI ing party handles the trans- would be quite interactive in calls “art cards” and that the action mechanism, the re- the sense of the American institution could arrange for ceipt of the cash, the delivery Memory site. The goal of the sale of the “art packs.” of the object and enables the this site is to enable people owner of the property right to to locate books that they COOK Report: I think you automatically collect a reve- would like to explore further have been suggesting that nue stream. It seems that if by telling people how to find these examples of the images you are going to use the this material at the respective shown freely on the Internet Internet effectively to sell institutions that hold it. will get larger. Is that cor- fine art reproductions you rect? want to do it in such a way COOK Report: If an institu- that minimizes the transac- tion wanted to sign a licens- Chiu yes. We will try to re- tion cost between the buyer ing agreement could it be fine how we show the im- and the seller. done directly with the institu- ages, but the criticism about tion or would need to be size that you mention is ab- I appreciate the National Pal- done with a separate non- solutely right. ace Museum allowing me to profit foundation? take some photographs but it COOK Report: The size of was so strange that they Chiu: We have asked all the the images, as transmission were determined that I didn’t institutions to sign a project speeds on the Internet have get too close in order to be wide declaration of coopera- increased, and the capability able to take any that were tion with Lessig’s Creative of displays is growing ever really very good. It is as Commons allowing noncom- more awesome is, to my way though they have the same mercial use. To my under- of thinking, critical indeed. walled garden attitude that standing the matter of com- It makes no sense to have telephone companies that mercial use would be entirely only a 350 x 700 pixel sized they must capture their visi- up to the agreement between image of the Jadeite cabbage tors and all the revenue de- the owner of the object and freely available on the Inter- rived there from. the entity licensing the prop- net. It seems to me that you erty rights to that object for are missing an opportunity to In a way they really don’t the sale of a reproduction of use the investment in the understand the Internet. For

© 2008 COOK NETWORK CONSULTANTS 431 GREENWAY AVE. EWING, NJ 08618-2711 USA PAGE 37 THE COOK REPORT ON INTERNET PROTOCOL JULY 2008 example I am sharing some them to the objects into each bring this idea to the atten- of these pictures on a social other and to the museum in a tion of some other people. It networking site that I’ve very major and favorable reminds me that we have an been a user of for 20 years. way. What do you think? experimental website named The people on this site and cyber island to encourage don’t have a clue that the Chiu: Oh yes I agree with people to contribute their National Palace Museum even you. You are right. The social photographs. Your idea is exists but they do take vaca- life of a photograph? Yes! very interesting because on tions and they do travel to Make it meaningful to the “cyber island” we encourage East Asia and having seen my kids. people who visit the night pictures they might become markets and find unusual and more aware and may be in- COOK Report: You under- tasty and attractive looking terested in stopping for a stand the Internet. Unfortu- dishes to take pictures of visit. nately the very senior people what they found and put involved with the old-time these pictures on the Inter- Kids Day museum culture don’t under- net. stand. If they would just change their ways and allow COOK Report: True. Allow And another crazy idea I’ve the kids to do their thing, it creativity to flow from the had is that at least once a would go viral. My hypothe- edge. But again, do so with month and then perhaps sis is that as long as they the idea of letting the kids once a week the National prohibit this kind of activity – loose, getting their creative Palace Museum ought to in- I mean they’ve spent so juices flowing, and getting vite kids to come up with much money on creative them competing with each their cell phones and digital marketing – that the money other in taking better photo- cameras and to take pictures spent and the investment of graphs or funnier photo- to their heart’s content to time and effort is wasted. graphs or mash-ups or things trade them with each other as yet unknown. Your cus- over the Internet. The adver- The young digital children – tomers at the edge have the tisements the NPM has done well you can just forget about tools and the creativity. Let as a part of phase one are their interest. them use it. very wonderful but they’re so 20th century. It seems to me Chiu: You are right I should that allowing the kids to take photographs would connect

© 2008 COOK NETWORK CONSULTANTS 431 GREENWAY AVE. EWING, NJ 08618-2711 USA PAGE 38 THE COOK REPORT ON INTERNET PROTOCOL JULY 2008 Conclusion: On the Necessity of Understanding How to Most Effectively Use the Internet as the Delivery Vehicle for a National Digital Archive

Now that the project has quite perplexing. To see the had morphed into a longer completed seven of its allot- wonderful goldfish, ivory ball animated commercial in ted ten years, its leaders are and jadeite cabbage videos – which a thousand year old being forced to confront the g o t o Tingware reclining child- question of how an inde- http://www.npm.gov.tw/en/d shaped porcelain pillow from pendent financial foundation ownloads.htm and choose the Northern Sung Dynasty may be achieved and the movies from the drop down that comes alive and leads a question as well of what did menu underneath the word collection of other animated we do this for to begin with? “downloads”. museum pieces on an adven- We all know there is this ture. Internet “thing” but can we http://www.npm.gov.tw/en/u agree on the proper basis of ploads/20070703023300199 using the Internet as a vehi- 75/SMALL_mac.mp4.zip cle to deliver both the con- [See illustration on the next tent of our culture and an page.] As a one-to-many understanding of why the in- mass media advertising vehi- vestment we have made is cle the new “adventure” ad is good and perhaps should be again superb. However, in the copied by other nations? So Internet Age, I question its we are forced to confront effectiveness. what we did this for to begin with. How do we monetize Extensive catalogues on the our investment in view of the “Old Is New” Theme portray fear of the Internet is just a the museum’s efforts at giant copy machine for giving “Developing cross brand plat- everything away. These are form alliances in order to the major and somewhat make the National Palace Mu- troubling questions form the seum not just a museum but basis for a reasonable as- also a lifestyle brand” (see sessment. the Palace Museum catalogue page 186.) The catalogue in- How to Market and forms its readers that the Monetize National museum has authorized established companies to pro- Treasures These above three thumb- duce various reproductions of collection works and artistic What I discovered at the Na- nails found on the above URL souvenirs that meet high tional Palace Museum was and two other 2005 videos

visitors to approach an understanding in the National Palace Museum from different angles, this project has especially incorporated the planning of [three] films. . . . . The second film is called The Passage and the museum put up the capital for the filming that was directed by Cheng Wen–tang. It was the first dramatic film by the National Palace Museum that was shown in public movie theaters. Centered around a famous work of calligraphy by the great Sung Dynasty scholar and artist Su Tung- p’o known as the Cold Food Observance, the lives of three different yet ultimately related people are woven together interspersed with segments dramatizing the history of the National Palace Museum. The end result is a touching story that slowly in unfolds before the audience’s eyes.”

I found out about this film by watching the NPM promotional DVD given out at Aca- demia Sinica before my visit to the Museum itself. In fact The first photo I took at the museum, the second at the there are several DVDs that main Taipei Train station cover the technology aspects of making the movies listed standards would be given a ogy, bringing the beauty of in this section. I watched National Palace Museum a cultural objects and educa- them before my interview registered trademark. As the tional resources at the Na- with James Lin. I was really catalog says on page 180 the tional Palace Museum closer psyched. This is world class “digital museum project to the people and presenting work. hopes to break through the them to the world.” barriers of traditional brick- Yet unfortunately, when I a n d - m o r t a r m u s e u m s A paragraph later we read made my eagerly anticipated through the use of technol- that “in an effort to allow visit, the feeling was one of

© 2008 COOK NETWORK CONSULTANTS 431 GREENWAY AVE. EWING, NJ 08618-2711 USA PAGE 40 THE COOK REPORT ON INTERNET PROTOCOL JULY 2008 being let down. James men- to sign an imposing legal British Museum. tioned that museums lag be- document promising no hind business by about a commercial use of my pho- Tear Down the decade in their adoption of tos. And, wearing an NPM Barriers And Look for technology. Alas, in what I orange vest, I was chaper- experienced, this is so true. oned by a museum staff per- Balance son who, if I adjusted my It is a shame that the Palace The message of one-to-many lens, sternly warned: “no Museum is so restrictive. I 20th century marketing was close-ups.” spent an enjoyable day in inviting and done so well it Danshui with a local social really raised expectations. And yes the policy seems to network activist who was in But sadly on arrival the visi- work. Google searches gen- his mid thirties and told me tor is told: “No photo- erally show no tourist photos. his last visit to the NPM had graphs.” Check your equip- Flickr photos show the out- been 20 years before. I ment at the door. If a mu- side and one or two snuck never developed any bond seum is to prosper, it must inside. The one form of mar- with the “queen” he said. He bond with its visitors. Napo- keting that likely in the age added that for the last 25 leon understood this when of the Internet delivers the years or longer technology two hundred years ago when most bang for the buck, pic- vendors which visited Taipei he invited aspiring artists into tures by its customers shared often made it their primary the Louvre to copy the art- on the internet, is missing. mission to sell proprietary works. technology to the “queen” Although not scientific quick and that this technology usu- In contrast the decision mak- check of Google was instruc- ally did not do much to break ers at the National Place Mu- tive as to the National Place down the barriers between seum simply do not under- Museum’s Internet Presence. the museum and the public. stand the transfer of power 563,000 entries compared to that comes with the new digi- 7.2 million for the British Mu- I tried out my idea of inviting tal technology. The most ef- seum, 3.5 million for the Met- the kids to take pictures once fective marketing that the ropolitan Museum of Art and a month and encourage their Museum can now ever do is 1. 2 million. The Ermitage in use in social networking. He in the hands of its visitors. St Petersburg was captured responded very warmly to It is their cameras. The Met- by IBM in the early 1990s in the idea saying that inviting ropolitan in New York allows IBM’s gilded cage offers them to experiment with the photography…. but without 620,000 entries. As Kevin use of their own digital tools flash and tripod. Why? Be- Kelly points out in the section at the museum would be one cause it makes it much more summarized below. Findabil- of the best ways to break difficult to get a picture that ity is valuable. If you cannot down the barrier between the could be commercially sal- find an image you won’t do NPM and new generations able. much commerce with it. To whose support would be nec- this end the folk from the essary for the Museum to The NPM takes an easier and NPM would do well to look at prosper in the future. more authoritarian way. No http://www.bmimages.com/i photos period. James Lin ndex.asp which is an entire On April 17th I wrote in my very kindly arranged for me website devoted to the dis- blog: I found out last week to receive special permission. play and sale of images from But even then I was required the vast collections of the

© 2008 COOK NETWORK CONSULTANTS 431 GREENWAY AVE. EWING, NJ 08618-2711 USA PAGE 41 THE COOK REPORT ON INTERNET PROTOCOL JULY 2008 why Kilnam Chon put me on about 300 by 600 pixels. But them. I asked: how many the program in Xi’an China still needlessly small. Making people know the union cata- last summer. people apply for special per- logue url? My friend relied: mission to see the larger im- Exactly, if it's not at least It seems in the museum area ages undercuts the goal of open to people, then how do I am a horrible raging icono- using the Internet to convey people get familiar with the clast. Why? Because i think Chinese and Taiwanese cul- culture, that's the biggest that archive projects should ture and art to the world. problem of NPM. My friend make what they archive asked about photos: “that's readily available over the It seems that the project is great that they gave you internet. See my presenta- looking for a balance because permission. Yes, I know, and t i o n a t it has not been able to un- you have to sign the form. http://www.digitalarchiveforu derstand relationship of the But if we normal people take m.org/2007 Internet to intellectual prop- photos, we will be sent to po- erty. A Taiwanese friend said lice station and you know we “The Taiwan NDAP project is in a chat after I returned cannot go into museum with doing wonderful work. But home; “I just have had a camera so you're really “Mr. what I have now found out is thought that all the archives Big.” that the most stunning im- in NPM belong to people in ages are available to the pub- the world, not just to the Licensing lic in the union catalogue at a NPM. What I mean "belong" resolution of about 300 by here is at least the images on That the project is getting 400 pixels - this when they Internet for people to see guidance from Dr Ching-Yi Liu are archived as large as and familiar with and so who has been a student of 6,000 by 4000 pixels. Follow many cultural archives in Larry Lessig and advocates t h i s l i n k NMP, but we cannot see Creative Commons licensing http://digital101.ndap.org.tw /htm/index.htm and you get to the union catalogue - in Mandarin. Look for the word Catalogue as a link at the bottom of the screen. You have six icons with which to explore. And at this point the menu choices are all in Mandarin. I am looking now at the image of a Chinese scroll painting that is the size of my thumb on my screen. Maybe 100 by 300 pixels. To a non specialist it is meaningless. And so it goes through about 600,000 objects.”

Further exploration revealed Gordon Cook, Editor, Publisher and Photographer for the COOK Report at some images as large as the National Palace Museum.

© 2008 COOK NETWORK CONSULTANTS 431 GREENWAY AVE. EWING, NJ 08618-2711 USA PAGE 42 THE COOK REPORT ON INTERNET PROTOCOL JULY 2008 is very encouraging. But as http://taiwanreview.nat.gov.tw/f desktop and beyond. Lee & far as I can tell, at this point, p.asp?xItem=1201&CtNode=1 Lee Communications has co- Dr Liu’s guidance to the deci- 28 we read: “Although West- operated with Taiwan's Na- sion makers still rests on an ern interest in Chinese art is tional Palace Museum (NPM) awkward balance between certainly nothing new, the to digitize part of its gargan- the appeal of Creative Com- ease brought by digitization tuan collection. . . . . In ad- mons non commercial use and the Internet takes the art dition to its joint venture with and the feeling that the NDAP from clubby boutiques com- Lee & Lee, the NPM has program must find out some manding high prices to the started to digitize its entire way of gaining a cash flow of continued support for its effort through traditional 20th century copyright and IPR hoarding where traditional publishers will use walled gardens to garner revenue and divert an appropriate amount to the custodians of the cultural artifacts.

In her August 2006 PNC presentation she lists an exploration of business oppor- tunities and applications of Digital archives. They have established 45 collaborative projects between industry and academia. The projects operate 58 different enter- prises employing 275 people. About 30 value added products have been created. Some 150 companies have joined the NDAP program. They are learning the ins and outs of commercial licensing with Artkey and Lee & Lee Communications having par- ticipated in the 2005 Licens- ing International meetings. Unfortunately, for a foreigner, the more one digs the more confusing the reality gets.

The sign explaining the ten meter long scroll exhibit

© 2008 COOK NETWORK CONSULTANTS 431 GREENWAY AVE. EWING, NJ 08618-2711 USA PAGE 43 THE COOK REPORT ON INTERNET PROTOCOL JULY 2008 collection under the auspices NDAP are breaking. to capture the exquisite detail of the National Digital Ar- was not allowed.) chives Program, launched at Let’s look at one more exam- the beginning of 2002 and ple. In early February 2008 The central picture on the sponsored by the National there was a news release: display sign reproduces the Science Council. Currently http://dreamartgallery.blogspot. bridge that is seen in the the largest art licensor in com/2008/02/taiwan-museum-t website picture below. The Taiwan, the NPM already o-show-chinese-treasures.html four pictures beneath it are maintains an extensive film versions of the same bridge archive. Its ever-expanding “Taiwan's National Palace Mu- that appear in different ver- digital archive, more durable seum, which holds the sions of the scroll screen…. and less bulky, is expected to world's largest collection of first painted about a thou- greatly stimulate the mu- Chinese artifacts, will hold an sand years ago but since re- seum's revenue stream.” exhibition in Austria in Febru- painted by artists over the ary, the museum said Thurs- follow seven or 8 centuries. Everyone then is jumping on day. My confusion was explained to the value chain reaching by the fact that the National out and grabbing for control. The show - Imperial Treas- palace museum owns no less Dr Liu acknowledges the diffi- ures: Masterpieces from the than seven different versions. culty of distinguishing what National Palace Museum, Tai- has commercial value from wan - will be held from Feb- The sign above says “knock what does not. But she is ruary 26 to May 12 at the on the gate and you will see also proceeding forward in Kunsthistorisches Museum in what is fun in the palace.” trying to push the union cata- Vienna, Austria, the museum Placing your hand over the logue into a creative com- said in a news release. The scroll to “knock” on the gate mons license and in encour- exhibition will feature 116 triggers an infra red device aging project participants to sets or works, . . . . The ex- that turns on an overhead look at their own commercial hibition will also feature the projector that displays an licenses. famous scroll painting Along animated movie telling the the River During the Ching- visitor about the daily life Licensing assumes hierarchy ming Festival. The 11.5 x 4 shown on the scroll. (The and control, a value chain of metre painting records life movie is partially visible in distribution, a centrally con- and customs in the ancient turquoise blue at the top trolled “rope” from the object capital of Kaifeng during the third of the screen). The to the user from which a Northern Sung Dynasty (960- technology is quite a tour de large group of people take 1126).” force. their slice. From this rope - call it the Intellectual Prop- When I saw this I recalled Wanting to know more I erty Right noose – hangs seeing a similar scroll, the Googled and found this money – cash flow – income same one in fact I thought in http://da.tnua.edu.tw/eTaiwan/ – the essence of sustainabil- Taipei only a few days before. contents/chingming-index_e.ht ity for the continued effort. Here are two photos I man- ml How to control, or balance, or aged. The first is on the pre- If you have a fast internet harvest the results – choose ceding page and the second connection and you are pa- your own terms is the central is on the top of the next tient and go to conundrum, the shoals on page. (Going close-up to try which the impressive wave of

A view of virtually the entire scroll showing the three animated explanatory displays that can be activated by “pointing” at objects according to instructions given by the signs on the railing. http://da.tnua.edu.tw/eTaiwa of the entire scroll - twice as perhaps three inches high by n/contents/chingming-whole_ high as the still picture below. seven inches long for as long e.html you can load a version It will scroll across a window as you wish. You may read a

The entire scroll in extreme miniature above and a larger section below

Along the River During the Ching Ming Festival

© 2008 COOK NETWORK CONSULTANTS 431 GREENWAY AVE. EWING, NJ 08618-2711 USA PAGE 45 THE COOK REPORT ON INTERNET PROTOCOL JULY 2008 detailed explanation of both you are told “Before you wan. the art and technology used place an order, please email to produce the display on the us to see if the painting is in Kelly: The internet is a copy web site. Yet the site is not stock. Payments : We ac- machine. At its most founda- satisfying. This was one of cept Check or Money Order. tional level, it copies every the most interesting objects I Once we receive your pay- action, every character, every saw at the museum. The ment, we will send you a thought we make while we faces on the tiny, tiny people confirmed e-mail or phone. If ride upon it. In order to send can just be distinguished if you have specific needs or a message from one corner you get up close and look looking for something not of the internet to another, the carefully at the original. available on our website, protocols of communication please send an e-mail to us demand that the whole mes- This object cries out for a for further information.” sage be copied along the way high resolution digitiza- several times. IT companies tion. Yet nothing is avail- This is NOT a web site with make a lot of money selling able. Nothing. The scroll which I would do business. equipment that facilitates this is not even shown in the On the other hand, if I were a ceaseless copying. Every bit museum guidebook. But citizen on the mainland of of data ever produced on any you can buy it from a Yahoo china, I would not be pleased computer is copied some- storefront: to know that high resolution where. The digital economy is http://www.geocities.com/Ch digitizations were available thus run on a river of copies. ineseTreasure/index1.htm but being unable to access Unlike the mass-produced as a dinner pad! The dinner them. In my opinion the dig- reproductions of the machine pad costs $45 dollars. itization model – noble as it age, these copies are not just may -- be fails severely here. cheap, they are free. This page http://www.geocities.com/Chi So where does this leave us? Our digital communication neseTreasure/C_ChingMing.ht As we have just seen, con- network has been engineered m implies that you can pur- tent holders may hoard but so that copies flow with as chase a reproduction of the content always slips out. little friction as possible. In- entire scroll 12 inches high Wired’s Senior Editor Kevin deed, copies flow so freely by 535 inches long. A nice Kelly writes a brilliant piece we could think of the internet reproduction is found here: here about the Internet as as a super-distribution sys- http://www.geocities.com/Chin copy machine: tem, where once a copy is http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/ar eseTreasure/PIC_ChingMing.h introduced it will continue to chives/2008/01/better_than_fre.p flow through the network for- tm The reproduction is per- hp ever, much like electricity in a haps 20% taller than the im- superconductive wire. We see age shown above. But evidence of this in real life. should you wish to order you But the Internet Is a Once anything that can be find out that they apparently COPY Machine copied is brought into contact stock only the dinner pad. with internet, it will be cop- No price is listed for the en- While I give the URL I also ied, and those copies never tire scroll.. And when you will quote a sizable chunk of leave. Even a dog knows you click on order Kelly’s essay. Assimilating it can't erase something once http://www.geocities.com/Chin is the most critical message I it's flowed on the internet. eseTreasure/ordering.htm can offer my friends in Tai-

This super-distribution sys- Authenticity -- You might be tem has become the founda- There are a number of quali- able to grab a key software tion of our economy and ties that can't be copied. application for free, but even wealth. The instant reduplica- Consider "trust." Trust cannot if you don't need a manual, tion of data, ideas, and media be copied. You can't purchase you might like to be sure it is underpins all the major eco- it. Trust must be earned, over bug free, reliable, and war- nomic sectors in our econ- time. It cannot be down- ranted. You'll pay for authen- omy, particularly those in- loaded. Or faked. Or counter- ticity. volved with exports -- that is, feited (at least for long). If those industries where the everything else is equal, Accessibility -- Ownership US has a competitive advan- you'll always prefer to deal often sucks. You have to keep tage. Our wealth sits upon a with someone you can trust. your things tidy, up-to-date, very large device that copies So trust is an intangible that and in the case of digital ma- promiscuously and con- has increasing value in a terial, backed up. And in this stantly. copy-saturated world. mobile world, you have to carry it along with you. Many Yet the previous round of [. . . .] people, me included, will be wealth in this economy was happy to have others tend built on selling precious cop- Immediacy -- Sooner or our "possessions" by sub- ies, so the free flow of free later you can find a free copy scribing to them. copies tends to undermine of whatever you want, but the established order. If re- getting a copy delivered to Embodiment -- At its core productions of our best ef- your inbox the moment it is the digital copy is without a forts are free, how can we released -- or even better, body. You can take a free keep going? To put it simply, produced -- by its creators is copy of a work and throw it how does one make money a generative asset. …. on a screen. But perhaps selling free copies? you'd like to see it in hi-res Personalization -- A generic on a huge screen? Maybe in I have an answer. The sim- version of a concert recording 3D? PDFs are fine, but some- plest way I can put it is may be free, but if you want times it is delicious to have thus: a copy that has been the same words printed on tweaked to sound perfect in bright white cottony paper, When copies are super your particular living room -- bound in leather. Feels so abundant, they become as if it were preformed in good. worthless. your room -- you may be willing to pay a lot. Patronage -- It is my belief When copies are super that audiences WANT to pay abundant, stuff which Interpretation -- As the old creators. Fans like to reward can't be copied becomes joke goes: software, free. artists, musicians, authors scarce and valuable. The manual, $10,000. But it's and the like with the tokens no joke. A couple of high pro- of their appreciation, because When copies are free, you file companies, like Red Hat, it allows them to connect. But need to sell things which Apache, and others make they will only pay if it is very can not be copied. their living doing exactly that. easy to do, a reasonable They provide paid support for amount, and they feel certain Well, what can't be cop- free software. the money will directly bene- ied? fit the creators.

Compared to the mainland, the religious culture of Taiwan is alive and vibrant. I stumbled on Mazuʼs birthday parade in front of the Longshan Temple. The carrier of the dragon head, seeing me photograph him, insisted that he return the favor as shown above.

from the skills of distribution In short, the money in this Findability -- Where as the since the Great Copy Machine networked economy does not previous generative qualities in the Sky takes care of that. follow the path of the copies. reside within creative digital Nor are legal skills surround- Rather it follows the path of works, findability is an asset ing Intellectual Property and attention, and attention has that occurs at a higher level Copyright very useful any- its own circuits.” [End of in the aggregate of many more. Nor are the skills of Kevin Kelly excerpt] works. A zero price does not hoarding and scarcity. Rather, help direct attention to a these new eight generatives Tapping Social work, and in fact may some- demand an understanding of Networks and Social times hinder it. But no matter how abundance breeds a what its price, a work has no sharing mindset, how gener- Production value unless it is seen; un- osity is a business model, In view of Kelly’s words found masterpieces are how vital it has become to above, I respectfully advise worthless. [. . . .] cultivate and nurture qualities my friends in Taiwan that that can't be replicated with a they really do not yet under- These eight qualities require click of the mouse. stand the internet. The prob- a new skill set. Success in the lem with the IPR centric point free-copy world is not derived of view is that it is really pre

Taiwanʼs temples are unlike any I have seen in Japan, Korea, Nepal, or mainland China. They are a combination of Con- fucian Taoist and Buddhist. I took these pictures of the two hour long Mazu birthday parade on April 16. Mazu, Queen of Heaven lived from 960 to 987 AD. Shown above are representations of the some of the other gods from the temples. © 2008 COOK NETWORK CONSULTANTS 431 GREENWAY AVE. EWING, NJ 08618-2711 USA PAGE 49 THE COOK REPORT ON INTERNET PROTOCOL JULY 2008

Internet. It certainly does not in Taiwan are like deer in the which ITRI is based and Bell seem to take into account the headlights of the perceived Labs have regrettably moved new economic models made threat that the internet as off shore to places like Tai- possible by web 2.0 technol- copy machine can rob them wan. In a future issue I will ogy – by Yochai Benkler’s in- of all the value from the publish an interview regard- sights into the social network NDAP program. ing ITRI’s work in the devel- productions as expressed in opment of display technology. his wealth of networks. See Conclusion The Wealth of Networks: How Also in a future issue will be a Social Production Transforms description of a system about So what ties all this together M a r k e t s a n d F r e e d o m which I first wrote also three is the question of monetizing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ years ago but one of which is the investment; of going be- now on the verge of going The_Wealth_of_Networks yond just a technology test- into beta test and will offer a bed and gaining a hoped-for very creative potential solu- Give people an edge linked permanent cash flow from tion at least to the problem of non-hierarchical framework delivering artistic images and using the Internet to deliver to play with and Wikipedia the aesthetics necessary for and monetize museum qual- results. I find that three their understanding across a ity art reproductions. things are needed to enable broader range of global civili- the NDAP to gain sustainabil- zation. Sustainability and in- Meanwhile, I will close this ity. Something similar to a tellectual property rights and study with a brief summary combination of Wikipedia for how to manage them sud- of the Visual Art Systems so- images, an Amazon.com to denly have become far more lution because it just may commercialize the sale of im- important than just the tech- turn out that VAS has the ages and related content, and nology and use of metadata framework that can unlock means of returning control that crosses intellectual the problems that NDAP over licensing and distribu- boundaries. faces. tion of content to the owners of that content is needed to The Taiwanese are very adept enable Academia Sinica and at thinking about executing VSI and the Art the National Science Council research and government Factory of Taiwan to gain for the peo- funded and backed efforts to ple of Taiwan and by exten- develop commercial technol- Visual Arts Systems (VSI) is sion the rest of the world the ogy. I saw some very inspir- a small startup conceived and greatest value for the $200 ing examples of this on a trip implemented over the past million US dollars invested in to the Industrial Technology four years by David Hughes the ten years of the NDAP Research Laboratories south III the oldest son of Dave project of Taipei – a trip which I re- Hughes, the cursor cowboy. quested and one which un- Since perhaps 2001 David Outside of the Internet value derlies the mentions made has immersed himself in both has been and generally still is earlier about government in- the Internet and the museum expressed by control of ob- volvement with and assis- and collections world seeking jects and copies of objects. tance to technology entre- to understand and tear down The problem is that Internet preneurship. The labs that the barriers behind which traditional museum and enables Digitalization to turn the United States once had collections culture sees no the world into a copy ma- some decades ago like the choice but to preserve control chine . Many of the players David Sarnoff Laboratories on

team has created software that he calls the “art factory”, (for now a working name). To give an arbitrary example, a museum or an owner of a private collection may sign a brokering agreement with VSI. If the content to be brokered over the Internet has already been digitized, all that the content owner must do is to take the content digitizations and then accession each digital object into the VSI system by means of running it through the art factory software.

The software uses a “wizard” interview technique to lead the content owner or accessioner through the entry of the necessary metadata to describe the object. Among formats used within the engine are the standard CDWA-lite (Categories for the Description of Works of Art) developed by the Getty Museum, to name one. [A m e t a d a t a s t a n d a r d s “crosswalk” or roadmap may be found here: h t t p : / / www.getty.edu/research/ conducting_research/ standards/intrometadata/ metadata_element_sets.html]

April 16, 2008: A Mazu birthday parade celebrant. These parts of Taiwanʼs culture should be well represented in its digital archive. The Wizard interview process a l s o e n c o u r a g e s t h e leading to what is now, in the houses like Corbis, Getty, accessioner, if relevant in his context of the Internet, a Jupiter Images, and so on to judgment, to include pointers strongly fortified walled the owner of every art object to descriptive audio or video garden approach to the in every museum or private information that in his or her outside world. collection at the edge of the opinion would add value that Internet has been perhaps is data imparting further Moving control from the the major objective of David’s understanding of the centralized licensing store- effort. To this end his small significance of the object

© 2008 COOK NETWORK CONSULTANTS 431 GREENWAY AVE. EWING, NJ 08618-2711 USA PAGE 51 THE COOK REPORT ON INTERNET PROTOCOL JULY 2008 being accessioned by the art cost? Who are the property in the licensing agreement. factory. A central element of rights stakeholders? What Therefore, a reproduction of the philosophy behind the art percent of the income from the licensed content cannot factory design is to enable the sale of the reproduction be made with out the owner the curator of the object to of the object does each of the license being informed. explain to a wider audience stakeholder receive? How is Originals are of course, what object is, and why it is the distribution of the originals. significant. The interview proceeds to be made? All process is designed in such a this becomes part of the The process is designed to way to go beyond that of a descriptions of the object. return control to the content catalog and to add value to owner and, through the use the objects by telling the When the accessioning inter- of the VSI technology, to story behind the object. Is it view is completed, the art disseminate using the required to do this with each factory produces two files. collaborative powers of the and every object? No. But The first becomes an xml file Internet far more widely than the art factory design that containing all in the descrip- a museum gift store, a stock makes it possible to do so. tive data, the thumbnail, and agency, a private collection, the larger sized original digi- e t c c o u l d d o a l o n e , Let’s assume that the object tal image, descriptive infor- knowledge of the existence of is a high-resolution mation. Much of the core in- the content of the collector , photograph of a painting. formation is hashed, hence the property owner, or the The art factory wizard will protected, and can only be museum. a s k : d o y o u w a n t a reviewed via security keys thumbnail? If so how many that unlock the information. At first those who become pixels wide and how many The information selected for VSI licensees will have one- tall? Do you want to a more public consumption enables of-a-kind websites built to detailed view? If so, again a viewer who is enchanted by become their Internet how many pixels wide and what he has seen to view, storefronts. The ultimate how many tall? And so on. study, and order a licensed objective is to have a very reproduction or an original large VSI website that Now we get to the critical object described in this mas- aggregates the licensed point where the accessioner ter file. content of the museums, is asked to describe the high- collections and other entities resolution image. The Wizard Whether a reproduction or an that sign. You may imagine software then leads him original object is purchased going to the website and through an interview in over the Internet, the VSI being invited to view the which, using information technology demands a key content from the Metropolitan o b j e c t s a n d r i g h t s from the owner of the Art Museum, from the management standards objects, for example, a Ermitage in St. Petersburg l a n g u a g e , http:// museum, a collection, an from the Louve in Paris, and www.dlib.org/dlib/april01/ artist, that is sent to the art perhaps even in the National erickson/04erickson.html he printer where - if the keys Palace Museum in Taipei. builds for the licensing match - a print will be made You may browse the content, agreement for the object. and the software process will download art cards, trade What is being licensed? A divide the funds derived them on the Internet and high-quality art print? What according to the licensing purchase fine quality size? What paper and what formula and disburse them reproductions of any items ink? How many at what to the stakeholders identified that you especially like.

Executive Summary

Taiwan’s National Digital Ar- as humanities. After the fourth - lives and cultures; chive Project began in 2001 trauma of the Cultural Revo- fifth -archives and databases; and will run through 2011. lution on the mainland, the sixth - artifacts and illustra- It originated as a collabora- Academy and Nationalist tions. tion between the National Government, with some justi- Science Council and Acade- fication, came to consider it- The bridging across disci- mia Sinica. As early as the self the ark for the preserva- pline’s will help raise many late 1980s Academia Sinica tion of Chinese civilization new possibilities for research had begun to digitize some of and its associated artifacts. such as the more widespread the Chinese classics and the Then, with the turn of the use of things like the largest dynastic histories of China. new millennium, some key known time series of human Consequently when the de- faculty in the Academy put measurements namely the velopment of technology and together and obtained fund- three centuries of the month- the Internet began to make it ing for a program of cross- by-month changes in agricul- attractive to undertake a ma- disciplinary digitization that tural prices registered as part jor effort, there was a fertile got an official start in 2001 of the Imperial Ch’ing Dy- foundation already there. under the title of National nasty archives in Beijing. Academia Sinica was the Digital Archive Program. original Chinese Academy of Several other serious digital Sciences. It was organized in As a very large island, very archive projects have begun 1928 and, having survived far south with mountains ris- elsewhere in the world. through World War II, and ing to almost 4000 m Taiwan However, the one in Taiwan is the Civil War, migrated across has extraordinary biodiversity the only one of which I am the Chinese mainland with of animals and plants and a aware that is so blatantly the nationalists and in 1949, several millennia old human cross disciplinary – some- with the victory of Mao Tse- civilization. This rich fabric thing that, given the capabili- Tung, crossed the Straits to combined, with the breadth ties of computer technology, Formosa and reestablished of coverage of the academy’s seems to be an obviously de- itself in Taipei. The National- institutes, resulted in a deci- sirable course to follow. ist Government and Acade- sion to cross link metadata mia Sinica brought with it a from 16 different fields of The program is highly desir- cargo of priceless Chinese knowledge ranging from an- able from multiple points of Imperial Archives and art thropology to zoology. In view. It will give additional treasures from the Forbidden 2006 with the beginning of reason to further the devel- City. Phase Two, a further decision opment of storage and dis- was made to merge the 16 play technology, an area Academia Sinica has more into six-thematic groups. where Taiwan with its Indus- than 30 Research institutes These are first - maps and trial Technology Research In- embracing the natural sci- architectures; second - lan- stitute is already a world ences, the physical sciences guages and multimedia; third leader. It will allow for inno- and political sciences as well - biosphere and nature; vative experimentation in

© 2008 COOK NETWORK CONSULTANTS 431 GREENWAY AVE. EWING, NJ 08618-2711 USA PAGE 53 THE COOK REPORT ON INTERNET PROTOCOL JULY 2008 electronic learning and in in- the exhibitions themselves; movement of powerful digital ternational collaboration. It and in all manner of licensed tools that heretofore could should help drive the devel- outreach to the public includ- have only been afforded by opment of metadata capabili- ing extraordinarily well-done museum staff into the hands ties. And finally, since it re- animations -- it has tried in a of the people at large. And sides at the cross section of 20th century one to many given photographic websites the interests of content own- manner to break down the and social websites with peo- ers or and the global Internet barriers separating the old ple at large, they will play as the preferred means of and more conservative mu- with their tools where they distribution (actually as a seum culture or from the are welcome. kind of copy machine) of im- modern world. Yet I contend ages and all kinds of media, that it is the power of digital The principal program lead- it has found itself caught devices in the hands of ordi- ers, to their credit, are trying squarely in a dilemma be- nary people, be they young- very hard to address the co- tween the 20th century para- sters with cell phone cameras nundrum in which they find digm of copyright and third- or older amateurs such as themselves caught between party gatekeepers who collect myself, that makes our inter- the need for a sustainable payment for the use of intel- est in using our technology to cash flow income from what lectual property and the 21st capture and experiment with they’ve done and the appar- century paradigm of the what we see at a museum ent problem of Internet as Internet as a copy machine like this has become increas- copying machine. They are so aptly described in a recent ingly paramount. We will go taking in one respect to ad- essay by Kevin Kelly. to museums by and large mirable out a way out by us- that permit photography and ing the Creative Commons Indeed wherever I went and avoid those that don’t. licenses for noncommercial to whomever I talked I en- use of what the project has countered a consistent and Regrettably the National Pal- developed. But at the same altogether not surprising re- ace Museum falls into the lat- time the project runs frain of the necessity to solve ter category. At some point squarely into a catch 22 in the problem of intellectual some years ago the senior that to try to distinguish be- property in such a way as to museum management began tween a relatively worthless gain from the effort’s dis- a digitization project -- even public domain and what can semination of its digitized in- before the National Digital be turned from a commodity formation a dependable cash Archive Program -- with a into a cash flow, the objects flow so that it can make into commercial licensing group that have been digitized – a self-sustaining operation that has sought to capture some hundreds of thousands the continuation and mainte- the value of the images. Not of them are placed in a union nance of what has been realizing this until after I ar- catalog – it’s still unfortu- done, when funding stops in rived on the scene, the con- nately all in the Mandarin. 2011. trast between the beautifully In the catalogue they come in done marketing and the ab- three sizes: archival of ap- This report offers extensive ject reality of no cameras proximately 4000 x 6000 pix- commentary on the National made for a severe disap- els industrial of approxi- Palace Museum. The NPM pointment. I contend that the mately 2000 x 3000 pixels has undertaken a major mar- senior museum staff simply and public domain usually keting campaign. In DVDs; does not understand the im- anywhere from about 300 x and the use of technology in pact of the Internet and the 300 to maybe six or 700 x

400 pixels. Given high- down the barriers between a larger image and extensive bandwidth technology and what they are doing and the metadata language wrapped improvements in color dis- public at large. Because what in a package that is used de- plays, the small images do they are doing is eminently signed to convey to browsers not do justice to the beauty worthwhile. And I also look on the Internet the value in- of the objects that they por- with interest at what Visual herent in the object and to tray. With special permission Art Systems is doing because allow them to make purchase required to access the larger it seems to me that when decisions about those objects images, there is a divide be- their current alpha test be- that they find especially at- tween the public and those comes beta and then com- tractive. Both sides of this whom the National Digital mercial, they may well have equation NDAP and Visual Art Archive program hoped would a viable solution where by Systems Inc. are worth fol- be come its customers. they can arrange with any lowing very closely in the fu- museum in the world or any ture. And NDAP is especially Parallel to my visit I was dis- content holder to license and to be congratulated for con- cussing the development of broker their content for sale tinuing now through seven an interesting project with over the Internet using a years of what will be a highly David Hughes III an old very innovative software “fac- innovative decade-long pro- friend. I used what I was tory” that keeps the very ject. finding out in Taiwan as an high resolution image for sale lever to find out more about as the highest quality of ar- this solution that David is de- tistic standards and, at the veloping for a startup that he same time, allows the con- calls Visual Arts Systems Inc. tent holder to develop an- I close this study with rec- other file using standard Mu- ommendations that the NDAP seum metadata language Project find out ways to break that contains a thumbnail and

A Note from the Editor on the July Format and Presentation

This issue has an introductory essay, four interviews and a conclusion. The symposium discussion will return next month.

Text, URLs and Executive Summary: I have attempted to identify especially noteworthy text by means of boldface for REALLY good “stuff” . less so in this issue however. Also the proper Executive Summary in this issue continues. I hope you ﬁnd it useful. Feedback welcomed. You will also ﬁnd live URL links and page links in this issue..

Coming in August - out about June 30 Interviews with David Liu on display technology and Joy Tang on connecting with developing countries. Or possibly with Peter Eccles- ine.

Contents Creating a Digital Ark for a Nation and its Civilization A Report on the First Seven Years of an Innovative Decade Long Effort

The Origins of a Digital Ark p. 1 Why Was it Done? Just Because it Could Be? p. 2 National Digital Archive Program - the Policy and Technology Rationale Dr. Simon Lin Examines the Purpose and Context

The Origins of the NDAP Program p. 4 The First Five Years p. 5 Transition to Phase Two - Three levels of Content Quality p. 9 Making Cross Disciplinary Data Available p. 10 Phase Two Objectives p.12 International Collaboration p. 13 Building a Foundation for Sustainability as the Goal of Phase Two Vice President Tsʼui Jung Liu

Building a Foundation for Sustainability p. 17 Property Rights -- A Critical Issue p. 18 Commercialization versus Research Priorities p. 19 Crossing Boundaries p. 19

© 2008 COOK NETWORK CONSULTANTS 431 GREENWAY AVE. EWING, NJ 08618-2711 USA PAGE 56 THE COOK REPORT ON INTERNET PROTOCOL JULY 2008 Bringing Taiwan’s Premier Museum into the Digital Age Dr. James Lin at the National Palace Museum p. 21

The Role of the Internet in the Future of NPM p. 22 The Mega-Projects Give Way to Ubiquitous Networked Society p. 23 So What Do You Do with All this Technology? p. 25 The Ubiquitous NPM - RFID in Museum Tickets p. 26 Sustainability – Private versus Public Sector p. 29 A Museum Reorganization p. 31 Institute of Philology and History Focuses on Outreach and Property Rights Solutions A Conversation with Dr. Pengshen Chiu The Role of the Institute of History and Philology p. 32 Intellectual Property Once More p. 33 Kids Day p. 37 Conclusion: On the Necessity of Understanding How to Most Effec- tively Use the Internet as the Delivery Vehicle for a National Digital Archive

How to Market and Monetize National Treasures p. 39 Tear Down the Barriers And Look for Balance p. 41 Licensing p. 42 But the Internet Is a COPY Machine p. 46 Tapping Social Networks and Social Production p. 49 Conclusion p. 50 VSI and the Art Factory p. 51

Executive Summary p. 53