The National Palace Museum inked a cooperative memorandum of understanding with Wikimedia Taiwan Sept. 26 in Taipei City, highlighting government initiatives to raise global public access to the facility’s digital collections.
Signed by NPM Deputy Director Huang Yung-tai and Dennis Raylin Chen, chair of the Taiwan chapter of Wikimedia Foundation, the MOU facilitates incorporation of the NPM’s open data into Wikimedia projects and paves the way for future artificial intelligence applications. Since 2013, the NPM has provided over 410,000 picture files from its collection for free public use, the museum said, adding that the two bodies will hold joint editing activities for Wikipedia and Wikidata, a collaboratively edited multilingual knowledge database, to encourage more public participation.
During the signing ceremony, Huang said the NPM is actively responding to the government’s open data policies and the global trend for museums to enhance public access to their collections. The museum is committed to upholding transparency and will continue to introduce its collections to countries around the world, he added.
Echoing Huang’s remarks, Chen said Wikipedia volunteers need institutions like the NPM to provide credible research information for encyclopedia content. He anticipated that the current collaboration would allow more people to appreciate NPM collections in creative and vibrant ways, opening a new chapter for data openness in arts and culture.
The NPM further praised the MOU as a breakthrough channel for soft power in the international cultural community. (YCH-E)
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