중국 내 고전 문헌의 디지털화 현황 및 전망

Abstract

This paper aims to introduce Korean researchers to how to use Chinese classical documents by examining the current status and problems in the digitalization of classical documents in China, and to help them research and educate classical literature based on reference and analysis of ancient Chinese texts.
Classical digitalization in China began in the 1980s. It then went through an exploration period from the mid-1980s, a stage of commercialization and enlargement in the mid-1990s, and commonality and popularization due to the promotion of national projects since 2007. Database achievements can be mainly divided into the resource library constructed by public institutions and the resource database established by companies or publishers. The former is somewhat limited in content, but the degree of openness remains higher. In particular, there are few databases that provide free services to the public offline as well as remotely, which is very convenient for overseas researchers. The latter has limitations because of its high price, but its rich content and various functions make it useful to institutional users that purchase the service. This paper pointed out four problems with digital construction in China at this stage: lack of database openness, lack of unified national-level planning and support, technical difficulties, and copyright problems. China has established many databases, like Korea and Japan, but these databases have problems of low use efficiency because not all data are provided free of charge to the public through a unified platform as in Korea and Japan. This problem can be resolved by improving national support, technical barriers, and copyright. However, some problems have recently been alleviated due to China's rapid technological development and the macro-policy coordination on the protection of traditional culture. In particular, some ancient book publishing houses attempted to integrate publishing resources and establish databases; companies also started to use AI to identify texts and input them into computers. These trials are of great significance, as they present a new direction for the construction of classical databases in Korea and China.