Global Memory Net and the development of digital image information management system: Experience and practice

Global Memory Net (GMNet) is intended to be an effective gateway to the world cultural, historical, and heritage image collections from selected academic educational and research partners in the world. Much of these unique collections of great value to education and research are not currently accessible due to distance, form, and technical barriers. This project is to find new ways to enable users to access and exploit these significant research collections via global network. As GMNet is ending its first 5-year phase in October 2005, it has contributed substantially to the community building in digital library development by ac- commodating numerous collaborators and technical staff from various parts of the world to spend 3 to 5 months as a full-member of the GMNet team in Boston. They have come from different parts of China—such as Sichuan, Hainan, Shanghai and Xi’an; Croatia; and Hanoi, Vietnam. In addition to contribute to the overall system development and enhancement of system function- alities, they have brought valuable sample image collections of their own institutions/countries, and actually developed prototype collections as a part of GMNet. This paper describes the exciting and productive experience of the first of this visiting research group in developing the GMNet’s Version 2.0 PHP-based system under Prof. Chen’s overall supervision. It also describes both the system’s technical level structure—user/Web-based application/data, and complex functionalities with multi-collection, multi-lingual, multi-modal searching capabilities; system management capabilities; as well as provisions for user uploads and retrieval for our own projects. This Version 2.0 system is built on the Linux/Apache/PHP/MySQL platform. What is described in this paper is an actual case which has formed a base for further new development by others in the research group. It demonstrates fully the value of the synergistic collaboration among global partners for universal digital library development. More information can be found in http://www.memorynet.org/.

New mode of universal access and Global Memory Net

In this digital era, we have witness the exciting convergence of content, technology, and global collaboration in the development of digital libraries. The mode of universal access for information seeking and knowledge acquisition differs greatly fi＇om the traditional ways. From the information resources point of views, the old model of“owning” a collection has given way to “sharing,” and the new emphases have shifted fi＇om possessing large “physical libraries” to “virtual libraries” digitally distributed all over the world. “Universal access” has taken on a very different meaning when one has the ability to share invaluable resources through the use of cutting edge technologies. The author has experienced much of these transformations through her own R＆D activities-from the creation of interactive videodisc and multimedia CD on the First Emperor of China＇s terracotta warriors and horses in the 1980s and 1990s to leading a current international digital library project, Global Memory Net （GMNet）, supported by the US National Science Foundation. In presenting her vision for linking world digital resources together for universal access, she will share with the audience the latest development of Global Memory Net.