Global Memory Net is a world digital library of cultural, historical, and heritage image collections. It is directed by Ching-chih Chen, Professor Emeritus of Simmons College, Boston, Massachusetts and supported by the National Science Foundation 's International Digital Library Program. The goal of GMNet is to provide a global collaborative network that provides universal access to educational resources to a worldwide audience. GMNet provides multilingual and multimedia content and retrieval, as well as links directly to major resources, such as OCLC, Internet Archive, Million Book Project, and Google.
History
Global Memory Net superseded Chinese Memory Net , which was founded in 2001 as a NSF/IDLP project. It was intended to make Chinese cultural and heritage resources globally accessible in a multimedia format. "The experiences and knowledge gained from made me realize the need to rethink the model for information dissemination and use," wrote Chen in 2001. CMNet later expanded to represent global collections and officially became Global Memory Net in 2003.
Collections
Reflecting GMNet's origins in CMNet and Prof. Chen's earlier PROJECT EMPEROR-I, an interactive multimedia project , the strongest portion of the collection's content is from China and Asia. This collection includes over 8000 images and featured videos of this World Heritage Site and the original discovery and excavation of the Emperor's terracotta army. Additional to the Asian collections are materials from around the world. A number of comprehensive collections are included, covering specific sites, cultures, and other overarching themes from content collaborators, including the UNESCO's Memory of the World, of Library of Congress, national libraries, academic institutions, and some private groups. These collections feature images of geographical locations and historical sites, historical manuscripts, maps, art, indigenous crafts, weapons, pottery and musical instruments. Every image is accompanied by metadata information. Images of musical instruments are linked with the audio and video files, and with notations. Metadata is recorded in multiple languages. In general, English is provided and is often also available in the local language of the object's country of origin. A recent ongoing project is the multilingual and multimedia documentation of all the UNESCO World Heritage Sites, known as World Heritage Memory Net. Collections in GMNet are broken up into the following categories to help users browse the extensive content:
In addition, GMNet also includes instant access to over 2530 digital collections from over 80 countries in the world in its .
Usage
Search Methods
When one enters GMNet, all collections can be searched using an open search box, which allows traditional search by metadata fields in multiple languages. Advanced Search with additional Boolean Operators is available for both Collections and images by language and by multiple fields. Information in GMNet is retrieved not only by the traditional way of searching by collection listings, country, or timeline, but especially by enhanced search methods including freely browsing, randomly looking for images of interest, finding similar images, zooming for details, and obtaining appropriate annotations. GMNet's search capabilities include:
GMNet links to outside data sources to provide more additional information resources to the user. These resources include OCLC, Internet Archive, Million Books, Google Scholar and Google Books, Wikipedia, and Flickr.
User’s Projects
Registered users may create up to 3 projects and save images in a durable portfolio within GMNet. As users search through the collections they can save and add notes and metadata to individual objects.
Partners
GMNet's partners can be divided into two categories:
Chinese Memory Net, 2000-2002 - Peking University, Beijing; Tsinghua University, Beijing; Shanghai Jiao-Tong University, Shanghai, China; Academia Sinica, Taiwan; National Taiwan University, Taiwan.
Piero Baglioni, Rodorico Giorgi, Department of Chemistry, University of Florence, Italy
Related projects
, WHMnet is a model global digital library of cultural, historical, and heritage collections related to the current 911 World Heritage Sites of 151 countries inscribed by the UNESCO World Heritage Committee.
Launched on April 23, 2011, NTHU Memory Net was developed jointly by NTHU and to create an online multimedia and multilingual knowledge base celebrating Tsing Hua's Centennial Anniversary. NTHU Memory Net is based on the same conceptual framework and uses the i-M-C-S system which was developed for GMNet, and enhanced for WHMNet.
