Prof. Li Bin of Nanjing Normal University surveys 280 classical Chinese text databases in China and abroad and proposes four levels — image, full-text, corpus and knowledge databases — each with its own irreplaceable role for research.

Professor, School of Literature, Nanjing Normal University

The digitization of Chinese ancient books has been carried out for decades, with a large number of different types of databases. Each database has its own contents, characteristics, technical frames, and functions, which has to be focused to divide their types and functions. Based on the investigation of 280 ancient book databases in the world, this paper divides them into four layers, namely image database, full-text database, corpus and knowledge database. All types of ancient book databases have their own irreplaceable role, depending on the needs from the users. The constructors of the databases can pay more attentions on the knowledge base in their plan for ancient book database construction.