China's Trial Digital Library, a national key sci-tech development project, passed an assessment Wednesday. Experts believe the project is up to world standards.

Developed mainly by the National Library of China, the project was a collaboration of six local libraries in Shanghai, Shenzhen, Zhongshan, Liaoning, Nanjing and Guilin.

After three years' strenuous efforts, the seven libraries have established a distributed digital library system of 900 GB, including more than 30 databases under four major themes: Culture and Tourism, Laws and Regulations, Chinese Who's Who and China's Military.

The technology assessment commission headed by Dr. Zhang Bo, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, examined the trial library and decided that it will provide fundamental and essential technological conditions for building China's large-scale digital library.

"Chinese are able to realize the dream of obtaining information at home today thanks to the digital library," said Vice Minister of Culture Zhou Heping.

He noted that the establishment of the Chinese digital library will change the situation of having insufficient information in Chinese on the Internet as well as promoting the development of information technology in China.

(People's Daily 05/24/2001)