Digital Library Application Grid – An Opportunity to Open Cultural Infrastructure

Abstract

The cultural infrastructure provides for the transmission of culture from creators to audiences. The access to this infrastructure is the key issue. The network technology will radically transform the interaction with knowledge. The base infrastructure will be knowledge networks rather than data networks. Digital libraries would become the universal knowledge repositories and communication conduits of the future. These digital libraries should enable any citizen to access human knowledge any time and anywhere, in a friendly, multi-modal, efficient and effective way. Ideally the infrastructure combines concepts and techniques from Grid computing. It would be an opportunity to open cultural infrastructure.

This work was supported by the National Science Foundation of China (NSFC) under the grant No.90104022, and the National Key Basic Research Program of China (973 Project) under the grant No. G1999032710.