As the national center of National Cultural Resources Project (hereafter referred to as the Sharing Project), the National Library of China takes responsibility of whole procedure in creation of digital resources including processing, storage, retrieval, transmission and utility. The Sharing Project was jointly initiated by the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Culture in April 2002, aiming at using advanced technologies to boost development and dissemination of advanced culture. The core issue of the Project is how to create digital resources and best serve both the general public and grass roots. 
 

1. Gestation and Objectives of Digital Resources Creation

Generally speaking, the Sharing Project focuses on integration of nationwide cultural and artistic resources highlighted by the concept of "Great Culture". The splendid resources from libraries, museums, art galleries, art research institutions and performing community will be designedly preserved in digital form so as to accelerate dissemination and innovation of Chinese remarkable culture. 

The objectives of the Project are: 1) to finish digital creation of 1 million items of literature, 1,000 regional plays, 1,000 pieces of music, 1,000 works of fine arts and 1,000 precious cultural relics, and put them on the Web; 2) to integrate social cultural resources that are close to people's life and common scientific knowledge, including general law knowledge, etiquettes in life, agricultural science, health care and encyclopedic kaleidoscope; and 3) to bring union catalogues of cultural resources from libraries, museums, art galleries and art research institutions into reality, build metadata exchange platform, create a navigation system of online cultural resources and provide services through using the networks formed by national center, regional centers and sub-centers. 
 

2. Achievements of Resources Creation and Intellectual Property Rights Protection

The Sharing Project is based on years' accumulation of digital resources from the National Library of China and other subsidiaries of the Ministry of Culture. A large number of newly born resources were organized and added according to the plan. 

At present, the national center has completed creation of 40 multimedia cultural repositories and provides users' access to them via the Internet. Some repositories such as "Celebrity Rostrum", "Cultural Dynamics" and "New Books" trace social hotspots. Some repositories such as "Chinese Book History", "Cultural Classics", "Ancient Poems", "Chinese Relics", "Rare Collection" and "Dunhuang Culture" reflect Chinese long history. 

Some repositories such as "Travel around China", "World Heritages", "Ancient Buildings" and "National Customs" introduce you scenic spots and local customs. Some collect the quintessence of Chinese literature, fine arts, photograph, opera, dance, music and movies. Some repositories that have close relationship with people's life such as "Apparels and Accessories", "Chinese Food Culture", "Tobacco Culture", "Liquor Culture" and "Tea Culture". 

Some repositories are full of fascination such as "Ocean Kaleidoscope", "Military World", "Coins in the World", "Cultural Awards" and "General Law Knowledge". Some aim to popularize common science such as "Agricultural Science", "Healthcare Guide" and "Popular Science Manual". Some explore government information such as "Cultural Institutions". All of these interlinked columns has built up a networked service structure and well manifested resource organization features by using digital library technology. 

As of the end of April 2003, the Sharing Project could provide access to 1.4 TB of digital resources, including 100 lectures given by prominent experts and scholars, 660 movies, 132 regional plays, 320,000 images, 80,000 books, 460,000 periodical titles and rich knowledge of history, law, popular science, healthcare and life. 

The Sharing Project attaches great importance to the issues of intellectual property rights protection. With regard to different works, it takes different ways of cooperation in copyrights. The Sharing Project has invested a lot in development of digital rights management system to deal with right protection of text, images, audios and videos. This system not only guarantees the security of digital objects in transmission preventing illegal use, but also offers a secure transaction platform with combination of accurate calculating function. 
 

3. Ways of Service Providing 

Internet. The Sharing Project provides Internet users' access to its integrated resources through the website (http://www.ndcnc.gov.cn). 

Satellite. The Sharing Project has a lot of audio and video materials. Some areas are in bad network conditions or have no access to the Internet. Therefore, the Project also use satellite powered by American Houston to provide services. 

Mirroring. The Sharing Project directly mirrors its resources to servers at regional centers which offer services to users by their LANs. 

CD-ROMs. The Sharing Project can also burns CD-ROMs according to users' requirements. CD-ROMs are quite necessary for some remote areas. 

Set-top Box. Because some sub-centers have no LANs, set-top boxes can be used to convert digital signals to analog ones that are acceptable to TVs. Off-line readers can also be adopted to share the resources. 

In conclusion, with regard to different conditions the Sharing Project adopts varied service channels in possible cost-effective ways to enable users to read e-books, listen to music, attend lectures, watch movies, enjoy plays, folk art forms and dancing performances, learn knowledge about law, culture and life, receive distance education and take part in teleconference etc.. 
 

4. Issues That Need Urgent Attention

1. Establishment of resources classification according to disciplines. The traditional classification system based on literature and subject can not meet requirements of digital resources classification. Therefore, it is necessary to subdivide subjects in creation of digital repositories after asking advice from experts in this field. The National Library of China is now working with knowledge management experts, computer experts and experts in other fields to build a complete system of digital resource classification and subjects.

 
2. Development of consummate indexing system based on ontology. Compared to traditional library services, today's information service meets several big changes. The service targets are changing and can receive long-distant services. The number of users is increasing dramatically. Natural language will replace the controlled authority thesaurus. So, automatic classification and indexing are becoming more and more important. The National Library of China is cooperating with Artificial Intelligence Institute at University of Arizona to make efforts in this field and hope to make greater progress as soon as possible.

 
3. Establishment of relevant standards and specifications. The complexity, diversity and people's understanding of digital resources bring difficulties in management and use of digital resources at different levels and in different forms. At the same time the diversity of storage environment and different services cause disadvantages of sharing in a broad range. Therefore, establishment of standards and specifications of digital resources is in an urgent need. 

 
4. Resolutions to intellectual property rights protection under digital environment. The issues of intellectual property rights protection in digital era has always been the focus of judicatory, library and ISPs. Past copyright protection rules has encountered great challenges. If mechanism of and resolutions to intellectual property rights protection can not be developed, the co-creation and sharing of digital resources will have great restraints. Therefore, The National Library of China held a "Forum of Intellectual Property Rights" in January 2002 to discuss and explore effective ways in handling issues concerning intellectual property rights protection and digital resources use in collaboration with legislative organs, law research institutions and library & information community.