The Electronic Cultural Atlas Initiative
Lewis Lancaster, University of California, Berkeley
buddhst@socrates.berkeley.edu

Cultural Atlases – Methods and Resources
Jeanette Zerneke, University of California, Berkeley
jlz@berkeley.edu

The Study of the Buddhist Temple of Chosun Dynasty (1392-1910) Through the
Electronic Cultural Atlas of Korea
Kim, Heungkyu; Lee, Jungjoo; Lhim, Hagseong; Paik, Sunchul; Kim, Sunhee; and
Lee, Younghee, Korea University
younghee@korea.ac.kr

Korea National Heritage Online Service
Byung-Hwan Park, Ministry of Culture & Tourism, Republic of Korea
hwany@mct.go.kr

Abstracts

Cultural Atlases – Methods and Resources
Jeanette Zerneke, University of California, Berkeley, USA

ECAI is a global consortium working to develop the genre of cultural atlases. This presentation will discuss the methods used by ECAI affiliates to create Cultural Atlases and highlight some of the resources available for scholars and students.
Scholars with ECAI are on working on a wide variety of digital cultural atlases, including development of local, regional, and global atlases. These atlases in turn are linked in a growing web of interactive dynamic atlases. The ECAI infrastructure for linking these atlases will be demonstrated. Several recent projects will be highlighted including, Ivories of Begram, Afghanistan, ECAI Iraq -- a time and space portal for digital information and the North American Missions electronic publication.
The ECAI clearinghouse is hosting significant spatial resources. It is an active portal for cultural spatial data resources. We are now working to ensure that it will be a global digital library resource.
ECAI has accomplished many of the goals it envisioned at its inception. At the same time there is a much greater understanding of the challenges facing implementation of a global infrastructure and standards for interoperative cultural atlases.
Just as the tools used to create dynamic cultural atlases are developing the resources available to include in them are also increasing. A short overview of some of the resources available, such as gazetteers, historic maps and online GIS data will be presented.

This assertion is one of the results of our work on Buddhist temple by the electronic cultural atlas and GIS. The results of our work are as follows. Firstly, it verifies that common view is incorrect. The common view is that the location of Buddhist temple had changed from flatland to mountain during the Chosun dynasty because the state religion of Chosun dynasty was not Buddhism but Confucianism. Secondly, it is estimated that the existing opinion which the remaining temples except 242 Buddhist temples were removed by government policy is in the wrong. Thirdly, it seems like that the accessibility of Buddhist temple had been worse than the Confucian building. The Confucian building had concentrated at the administrative center more than the Buddhist temple during the Chosun dynasty. In conclusion, this study is significant in points of the use of the electronic cultural atlas of Chosun Korea and a precedent example to test the existing hypotheses.

Key word: Chosun dynasty (1392-1910), Buddhist temple, location, accessibility

Project Resume
Korea national heritage online service represents Korean people’s superiority of cultural heritage. We do our best to hold in trust precious assets of art and antiquities from ancient and living Korean culture
Korea National Heritage online service is composed of three elements for Korea national treasure: DB construction, total management, Conservation Treatment of heritage in online service
The most important material of this project is DB construction. Therefore, DB construction is the most important tasks of the project with the highest priority. There are various ways for DB construction, such as 3D, 2D, Cyber Museum, Web site, Text etc.
For the scientific management on all assets in Museums, We develop new “standard assets management system.”
In order to preserve and manage heritage permanently and efficiently, various work processes including registration of heritage, DB construction and conservation treatment are required.

Project Overview
Establish a nationwide cultural properties management and scientific preservation system through digitization and systemization of cultural properties and treasures information in a comprehensive database & Increase the value of national cultural industries by building an online portal that can act both as an informative site and a promotional site for museums and other locations significant to the national culture.

• A portal to provide access to cultural properties and satisfy people’s desire to learn about Korean culture
• Expand availability of digital information on national cultural properties
• Establish research and preservation system through comprehensive, digital management of national cultural treasures
• Increase national competitiveness in the era of information society through digitization of cultural information

Background
• Designated as one of the top 5 national strategic knowledge banks (top 5 knowledge banks include culture & arts, science, education, and cultural properties)
• Government enacted a Information and Knowledge Management Act in January 2000
• Plan for “Digitization and Systemization of National Cultural Treasure Data” project established (project to span 2002-2006) as a result of the 200 Act. Currently implementing phase 5 of the project.

Implementation Process and Plan
National Cultural Properties Project will be implemented according to the of allowing stages.

Implementation
Cultural Properties Digitization Project Implementation Phase (2000~2002)
• Establish cultural properties DB and cultural properties information service
• Check materials from organization that are included in the cultural properties
digitization project
• Standardization of cultural properties information

Expansion
Cultural Properties Digitization Project Expansion Phase (2003~2004)
• Expand cultural properties DB and cultural properties information service
• Expand service to general public and increase content

Maturation
Cultural Properties Information Integration Phase (2005~2006)
• Establish integrated cultural properties information and management portal