= The National Palace Museum

 (Website: http://www.npm.gov.tw/dl/index.htm)

This project includes establishing a set of digital standard, selecting works for photography, setting image specifications, analyzing and editing information, arranging for the scanning of images, image color management, image copyright protection, information storage and management, and developing a digital value-added application systems. This procedure is shown in Figure 4. NPM has developed cooperative arrangements with related institutions and has invited Academia Sinica to participate and cooperate in developing image file transfer, metadata, image copyright protection, and geographic information systems.

Figure 4: Developing the National Palace Museum Digital Archive

Each year, approximately 2,000 works from the Antiquities and Painting & Calligraphy departments are chosen for a total of 10,000 over five years. Each year, approximately 40,000 works from the Books and Documents Department are chosen for a total of 200,000 over five years. For protect copyright, digital watermark has been included in each image files.

As the quality of is concerned, digital images are divided into five classes based on their fidelity level: reproduction image file (surrogate image), publication catalogue image file (archive image), medium image file (medium image), screen display image file (reference image), and screen preview image file (preview image). For example, the specifications of reproduction image files are:

1. Image format: CMYK (32 bits/pixel)

2. File type: TIFF

3. Resolution: greater than 600 dpi

4. Image file picture dimensions: approx. 872 x 621 square centimeters

5. File size: greater than 600 MB

6. Color management employs International Color Consortium Profile in all the equipment to achieve uniform color output. As part of the entire quality control process, there are three main parts: high-level screen sample coloring, professional RIP sampling, and international IT8.7/3 proofing.

The National Palace Museum website also won a bronze medal for web art at the Barcelona AVICOM (International Council of Museums for Audiovisual and New Technologies) Conference in July 2001. It was also the winner of an award for aesthetics and web art at the Festival Audiovisuel International Musees & Patrimoine in November 2000 and a MUSE Award at the St. Louis AAM (American Association of Museums) Conference in the educational/interpretative category in May 2001.