The Institute of History and Philology of Academia Sinica owns the largest collection of Han wooden slips in the country, throughout the years it has accumulated a large amount of achievements on digital archives. On the existing basis of the institute’s Edsen-Gol wooden slips digitized contents and the “Han Wooden Slips Database”, the project will further explore the structure and information technology of open source database and attempt to transform traditional digital archive system to an open platform digital humanities system. The development of “Wooden Slips Character Dictionary” is expected to enhance the interoperability of digitalized resources of wooden slips and become a leading model of open source database. The institute aims to carry out the project by working with Japan’s most iconic wooden slips excavation and collection agency- Nara National Research Institute for Cultural Properties and Academia Sinica Center for Digital Cultures.

The duration of the “Wooden Slips Character Dictionary” development project is three years, the project goals includes:

1. Explore the “Wooden Slips Character Dictionary” related international standards.
2. Adapt Linked Open Data (LOD) technology and International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) standards to facilitate wooden slips research.
3. Develop an Optical Character Recognition (OCR) model to establish functions such as automatic character positioning and annotating, automatic interpretation and reverse image searching.
4. Explore the feasibility of automatic recognition and annotation of wooden slips’ attribute based on annotating its attribute.
5. Share digital resources among agencies and strengthen international exchange and cooperation.