Taiwan Digitalarchives National Digital Archives Program NDAP

History and Founding

Taiwan Digitalarchives is the web portal and union catalog of the National Digital Archives Program (NDAP), officially launched on 1 January 2002 by Taiwan's National Science Council (NSC) and directed by Academia Sinica. The NDAP was designed to digitize national cultural treasures including archaeology, archives, artifacts, calligraphy and paintings, flora and fauna, rare books, and other cultural assets. Its origins trace to earlier projects: a Digital Museum initiative in 1998 and an Open Digital Archive Environment in 1999. In 2008, the NDAP merged with the National Science and Technology Program for e-Learning to form the Taiwan e-Learning and Digital Archives Program (TELDAP). The first phase of NDAP was completed in 2012, by which point the program had created more than 5 million digital objects and over 700 databases and websites, with over 100 libraries, archives, museums, academic institutions, and government agencies participating.

Collections and Holdings

The Taiwan Digitalarchives portal provides access to digitized collections from major Taiwanese institutions including Academia Sinica, Academia Historica, the National Palace Museum, National Taiwan University, the National History Museum, and the National Library. Digital objects span Ming and Qing dynasty archives, Japanese colonial period (1895–1945) materials, Republic of China government documents, cultural artifacts, biological specimens, and more.

Access and Usage

The portal is freely accessible online. A union catalog interface allows users to search across participating institutions' digital collections. The NDAP's online collections remain accessible for research and reference purposes.