Specialists at the China Archive Digitization Development and Strategy Forum, held from June 20 to 21, said Shanghai's archive of core data will be finished by 2010, when all 2.65 million volumes of records will be available to citizens. Marital records will be the first to be made accessible by the end of June.

Wu Guanghua, from Shanghai Municipal Archive's Information Technology Department, said a digital archive is like a library where information is digitized and searchable by citizens and government departments.

More than eight million pieces of archived information have now been collected; 2.64 million volumes of city records plus data from 19 districts and counties, colleges and universities and on meteorology, arts and business. Teaching materials, student records, medical records and weather records will all be available electronically.

The confidentiality of private information and state secrets will be maintained, said Zhao Qingjia, chief of the archives' Science and Education Section. Personal data, such as marital records, will only be available to those involved on application.

After application and authorization, Shanghai Municipal Archives will send the requested information to individuals via email.

The next set of records to be collected and digitized will be those on educated young people (usu. referring to secondary school graduates who were unable to pursue their studies in institutions of higher learning during the "Cultural Revolution") on single children (who are entitled to special benefits) and on people who have been resettled for development.

The construction of associated local databases has also begun -- Fudan University has digitized all students' records from more than a century of teaching.

(China.org.cn by Chen Lin, June 30, 2005)