Academia Sinica Digital Archives Digital Archives Exhibition Center

Overview

The Academia Sinica Digital Archives (Digital Archives Exhibition Center) is a web portal and research infrastructure operated by Academia Sinica — Taiwan's foremost national research academy — that aggregates and provides online access to the digitized collections of Academia Sinica's multiple research institutes. Since 2002, it has served as a central point of discovery for digitized materials spanning natural history, history, archaeology, cartography, linguistics, and cultural heritage.

History and Development

Academia Sinica began digitizing its collections as early as 1980. The Scripta Sinica database — a major database of Chinese historical texts — became accessible online in 1995. From 2001, the National Science Council of Taiwan launched the National Digital Archives Program, which stimulated an expansion of Academia Sinica's digitization efforts across nine sub-projects covering diverse collections. By 2002, the institution made the majority of these digitized holdings available via the Internet.

Collections and Holdings

The Academia Sinica Digital Archives aggregates collections from multiple institutes including:

• Institute of Modern History: Foreign ministry records (1861–2009), economic ministry records (1903–1980), personal papers, and historical maps — approximately 10,000 linear meters of archival material, with nearly half digitized and accessible online after registration.
• Institute of History and Philology: Archaeological excavations, bronze and stone rubbings, rare books, ethnic minority records, and the Grand Secretariat Archives (Qing dynasty), organized across twelve digital archive databases.
• Institute of Taiwan History: The Tan-Hsin Archive, manuscripts of Kanori Ino, rubbings of Taiwan cultural relics, the Yasusada Tashiro Collection, lyric books of Taiwanese opera, and folk documents including contracts, account books, and photographs (over 30,000 items accessible, with nearly 1.5 million digital images as of 2013).
• Natural history and biodiversity: Taiwan's fishes, shellfish, and aboriginal artifacts.
• Cartography and remote sensing: Ancient maps, modern China's historical maps, and aerial photography.
• Linguistics: Mandarin Chinese and Formosan (indigenous) language archives.

Significance for Journalism and Media Research

The Institute of Modern History's diplomatic and economic archives, covering 1861 to 2009, constitute a major primary source for research on modern Chinese and Taiwanese history. The Taiwan Provincial Consultative Council archives, digitized as part of the National Digital Archives Program, provide legislative history documentation. The Institute of Taiwan History holds lyric books of Taiwanese opera, oral traditions, and community archives relevant to cultural media studies.

Access and Usage

The main Digital Archives Exhibition Center portal is accessible at digiarch.sinica.edu.tw. Access requirements vary by collection: some materials are freely accessible, while others require personal registration. The reading room at the Institute of Modern History Archives is open Monday to Friday, 9:00–17:00, by appointment. Academia Sinica is located at No. 128, Academia Road, Section 2, Nangang District, Taipei.