Introduction

Since its establishment in 1928, the Institute of History and Philology has actively engaged itself in the collection of related historical materials, such as artifacts, books and documents. The Fu Ssu-Nien Library, the Museum of the IHP and the Taiwan Archeological Studies Building each houses part of the Institute’s collection. Starting from 2001, through participating in National Digital Archives Plan of Academia Sinica, digitalization has begun for archeological findings, stone rubbings, rare books, cultural artifacts of ethnic minorities, archives of the Grand Secretariat, as well as other collections. In 2014, the IHP Archives was established in order to effectively coordinate and maintain the archival documents and related digital files collected by each individual department of the IHP, with the expectation that besides instituting systematic management and preservation, the new archive would also collect and compile additional documents on an ongoing basis.

As it is still in its incipient phase, the IHP Archives continues to mainly focus on the file compilation of the IHP’sacademic and administrative written documents as well as publicly soliciting worthy collections. Therefore, unfortunately, the IHP Archives has not yet opened to the public for information retrieval, document browsing, or document copying. In the near future, when the Archives is fully organized and ready, the IHP will establish regulations for the services mentioned above under the monitoring of the Archive Management Committee. Such services will then be open to the public, thus implementing the policy of giving citizens the rights to be shared with and to use the government’s information.