Without any traveling a teacher in
Tibet will
be soon be able to consult a reference book in the
National Library in Beijing simply
by logging on to a national information-sharing network.
The network, due to be completed in 2005, is being set up across
China with financial aid from the central government.
According to the Ministry of Culture the network aims to enable
people in remote and poor western areas to share the cultural
resources found in libraries, museums, art galleries, and research
institutes in the affluent east.
By
using modern information technology, cultural resources will be
digitized and put onto the computer network which will be available
throughout the country, Minister of Culture Sun Jiazheng said on
Monday at a national conference on grassroots-level culture.
"The project which starts this year will create a brand new channel
for the exchange of cultural information in China without the
limits of time and space," said Sun, who also heads the
construction of the network.
The construction of the computer network for libraries, museums,
art centers, artistic institutes and groups and research institutes
has made much progress and accumulated a large amount of digital
cultural resources, according to the Ministry of Culture.
China's National Library is one of the project's key programs and
will provide 10.78 million bibliotheca free to readers. The website
of the National Library which already has 565 member libraries
provides 60 million pages of full text visual data.
China's main telecommunication network has expanded over a large
territory, covering the public Internet system in 200 cities in
China and connecting 160 education and research networks in 160
cities.
High-tech communication systems, like Wide band network found in 17
key cities in Southeast China, China cable TV network -- the
world's largest cable TV, and satellite high speed wide band
multimedia communication network, put together, lay a solid
technological foundation for the project.
Television with a special box for Internet access will enable 320
billion TV viewers to enjoy the rich cultural resources provided by
the project.
"The project will play an important role in improving the present
situation in the vast central western China, where the level of
economic and cultural development and information exchange lags far
behind coastal areas in the east," Sun said.
The first group of cities to be included in the project will submit
their plans at the end of June, according to the Ministry of
Culture.
(Xinhua News
Agency April 22, 2002)