Preface

Books, documents, archives, and other cultural relics carrying cultural heritage information are all products of human culture and history development, reflecting cultural evolution from various aspects. The essential attributes of libraries, archives and museums (LAM) are non-profit cultural institutions dedicated to the preservation, utilization, dissemination, and maintenance of human social and cultural heritage. Although they are preserved and serving people in different cultural institutions, some of LAMs work processes are similar: preserving the resources related to culture and meeting the user’s information needs from different perspectives. LAM professionals and administrators are more open to collaborating on digital projects to make their holdings widely accessible.

The convergence service of digital LAM resources or digital LAM convergence service is a cooperative and collaborative sharing service based on their co-constructed or integrated digital information resources in the IT technology and Internet communication environment. Hence, its synonyms are collaboration and cooperation of digital LAM resource service. Indeed, these cooperative and collaborative efforts aim to provide deeper, comprehensive, efficient, one-stop, multi-view and interactive knowledge service for users. It is a complicated cross-disciplinary construction process involving LAM and computer, multimedia, information visualization, Internet technology, etc. , which is very helpful to realizing all-media resources, seamless convergent and integrated services in the background of digital humanities. Digital technology advantages better support preservation and protection and the convergence service and dissemination of LAM resources.

Moreover, open-access digital information is blurring the lines of the original collections. With the increased focus on digital resources and online access, promoting virtual convergence service among LAMs can greatly decrease the collaboration costs of managing physical LAM collections while keeping user’s learning in an information-rich environment. Further, it connects with many issues, such as quality of resources, service platform, cooperation management, intellectual property right protection, etc.

China is one of the largest countries in population and territory with more than 5000-year cultural history. To develop the convergence service of digital LAM resources in China, we should have a full understanding of China’s national conditions and its social development process from a historical and overall perspective and fully understand the social value of China’s cultural causes and cultural resources, the significance of national development of social science. And it is preferable to pay attention to the differences in the administrative system, ideology and the need to protect it, language and national characters, and the compatibility of the service management mechanism between China and foreign countries. Andit is necessary to investigate and explore the feasibility, scope, depth and methods of digital LAM convergence services technologies.

The digital LAM convergence service involves multiple disciplines and fields such as library science, archives science, museology and computer technology. The book mainly describes our investigation on theoretical, technological methods for digital LAM convergence service. Part one includes the convergent services based on the information integration management theory, especially multi-source information, multidimensional services convergence strategy, user-oriented service convergence management of the cultural heritage resources, digital service management mechanism, its patterns with the Chinese characteristics. Part two deals with the experimental investigation of technologies, such as multimedia LAM resource reconstruction and retrieval service, resources copyright management technology, linked data and knowledge graph construction, automatic question answering system, natural interaction technology, mobile information recommendation system in the application of the mobile LAM service, visualization technology, and technologies’convergent analysis for the digital LAM services convergence.

This book contains our theoretical and technological research achievements related to digital LAM service convergence for more than ten years. Thus, it is suitable for theoretical and technological researchers in the fields of LAM services, construction and management as well as decision-makers. It can be used as a research reference material for postdoctoral fellows, Ph. D.candidates, graduates and senior undergraduates in information science, information resource management, information technology and other related disciplines.

The research and writing were supported by the National Social Science Foundation, the Planning Office of Philosophy and Social Sciences of Jiangsu Province, the Department of Social Sciences of Nanjing University and the School of Information Management of Nanjing University. I want to express my heartfelt thanks to the National Planning Office of Philosophy and Social Sciences, the Jiangsu Provincial Planning Office of Philosophy and Social Sciences, the Department of Social Sciences of Nanjing University and the School of Information Management of Nanjing University. Thanks to National Library of China, Palace Museum, National Archives (Administration) of China, the Second Historical Archives of China, Nanjing Library, Nanjing Museum, Archives (Administration) ofJiangsu province, etc. , for their effective cooperation and support. Further, thanks to Mr.Ding Wu and Mr.Hailong Zhen for their valuable efforts during the publication at Nanjing University Press.

Prof. Mark Xuefang Zhu, Ph. D
Institute of Multimedia Information,
School of Information Management, Nanjing University