334 P C. Chan et al. In order to supplement insufficiency of artifacts collected by the museum, folklore hobbyists are regularly invited to demonstrate their private collections. At the mean time, the task force of digital preservation team of the museum digitizes the artifacts for extending its contents. Table 2 shows the exhibitions of the folklore artifacts col- lected by hobbyists and folk arts created by folklore artists at the Taiwan Folklore Museum from 2005 to 2007. Another way to aggressively increase the number of digitized contents is to sign cooperation agreements with members of the folklore associations by giving services to digitize their personal collections. We expect that after having extended the digital contents, the web site of Taiwanese Folklore Mu- seum will become even more popular for teachers and students, especially in the kin- dergartens and primary schools, to extract and prepare useful materials for folklore education. Table 1. Statistics of educational groups and persons who visited Taiwan Folklore Museum in 2006 School Number of School Number of Persons University 14 364 High school 5 747 Junior high school 7 340 Primary school 37 2079 kindergarten 199 10988 Pre- kindergarten 66 2533 Table 2. Summary of culture and art exhibitions at Taiwan Folklore Museum from 2005 to 2007 Exhibition Name Exhibition Name Item Example item Example y awan r ss 00 m d Digital Content Development of Folklore Artifacts and Activities 335 2 Materials and Methods The task force is consisted of multi-discipline scholars, including folklore specialists, archivists, and academic researchers majored in computer and information sciences. Their dimensions, originalities, functions, and other detailed descriptions were exam- ined, investigated, and recorded by folklore specialists. Metadata based on the Dublin core were also constructed for compatible with international standard. Finally, a database system and a website were designed for providing general publics and re- searchers to browse and surrogate the digital contents. 2.1 Digitization of Folklore Artifacts Pictures of the artifacts were taken by a professional photographer using a profes- sional Hasselblad camera with 120mm positive films. Three infrared-synchronized spotted lamps, one was placed above the artifact and the other two at its left and right sides, were used to eliminate the shadow effect. The pictures were then digitized by a high-quality scanner with resolution as high as 600 dpi and stored in true-color format (TIFF) for further processing and future references. A commercial software package (Adobe Photoshop) was used to calibrate the color saturation and hue deviation caused by over- or under-exposure caused by differences in exposure characteristics among artifacts with great variety. In addition to the digital contents, paper-based documents were also prepared for supporting on-site demonstration and back-up. The artifacts were classified into ten categories according to their life styles and functions. Table 3 summarizes the categories and numbers of the artifacts collected in this mu- seum. Figure 1 shows examples of the representative artifacts for ten categories. (a) (b) (c) (d) (e) (f) (g) (h) (i) (j) Fig. 1. Examples of folklore artifacts, in which the artifacts were classified into ten categories including (a) clothing and jewelry, (b) kitchenware and dinnerware, (c) furnishings, (d) trans- portation, (e) religion and religious ceremonies, (f) aborigines, (g) documents and deeds, (h) machinery and tools, (i) study, and (j) arts and recreation 2.2 Digitization of Folklore Activities Step-by-step folklore activities were demonstrated practically by the folklore specialists invited to participate in this study and the actions were taken by a professional 336 P C. Chan et al. photographer using a digital camcorder with a resolution of 640x480 pixels. The text and oral description of a folklore activity were done by a folklorist who majors in this specific activity. Video clips of individual steps were obtained by using the video editing software to edit a video sequence and saved as the Microsoft wmv and Apple Quicktime formats. These video clips were then combined with other related information and recorded using metadata format compatible with the Dublin core standard. Metadata designed based on the Taiwanese folklore artifacts [3] were extended to include folklore crafts, skills, and rituals, in which the “Relation” element contains two quantifiers, i.e. “Has Part” and “Is Part Of”, is used to interlink between the main (parent) metadata record and its children metadata of individual steps[9]. An example of step-by-step demonstration of bamboo weaving is described in Table 4. Each step in this table has a corresponding video seg- ment. Additionally, a main (parent) metadata record is used to interlink with its related activity steps (children) by the “Relation” element proposed by the Dublin core, in which, as shown in Fig. 2, the element contains two Quantifiers; i.e., “Has Part” and “Is Part Of” for describing the sequential relation between the parent and children metadata records. Additionally, the Quantifier “Reference source” is applied for expressing its relationship with other artifacts or folklore activities. The “Has Part” Qualifier is used for the parent metadata record to relate to its children steps, while the “Is Part Of” for the child steps to trace back to their parent. With this mechanism, all the child steps can be tightly connected to their parent so that the ASP webpage design program can support flexible interaction between the users and the browsers for easy navigation. The Quanti- fier “Sub-Collection Type” was added to the Element “Type” in the metadata proposed in [3]. Table 3. Categories and Numbers of Collected Folklore Artifacts Item Category Number 1 Clothing and Jewelry 353 2 Kitchenware and Dinnerware 242 3 Furnishings 232 4 Transportation 67 5 Arts and Recreation 81 6 Machinery and Tools 14 7 Religion and Religious Ceremonies 264 8 Study 96 9 Aborigines 31 10 Documents and Deeds 32 Total 1412 2.3 Web Implementation with Xml for Data Exchange among Museums A Microsoft SQL2000 server is built for handling database management and query. The web pages were designed using ASP.net. Figure 2 demonstrates the structure of the web site. As shown in this figure, functions including demonstra- tion of digitized contents, member information, and blog function for information Digital Content Development of Folklore Artifacts and Activities 337 Table 4. An example of step-by-step descriptions for bamboo weaving Video Step and Description 1. Scraping: 2. Splitting into strips: 3. Splitting into thinner strips: 4. Trimming width of bamboo strips: 5. Trimming thickness of ba mbo o strips: 6. Round mouth weaving technique: 7. Weaving the bottom 8. Drawing in the mouth 9. Making the base: 10. Making the handle: 338 P C. Chan et al. Reference Relation Collection Type Folklore Artifact Type Sub Collection Type Arts and Recreation Title Budai Opera Puppet Classified Number AARPU_00 Content Hand Puppet Theater Subject Situation and Function Traditional Hand Puppet Theater has a very classical and refined flavor about it. It has seven major characters, including students, females, clowns, monks/nuns, children, miscellaneous and beasts Has Part Is Part Of Relation Reference Source CACPU_00 Collection Type Folklore Craft Type Sub Collection Type Artistic Carving Title Taiwanese Hand Puppet Theater-The craft of making the puppet head Classified Number CACPU_00 Content Hand Puppet Theater Subject Situation and Function The head of the puppet is important as it gives it life and personality. The types of heads can be divided overall into “san gu” (lit. three bones) and “wu hsing” (lit. five forms). San gu refers to the brow, cheeks, and jaw bone, while wu hsing refers to the two eyes, two nostrils, and mouth. San gu and wu hsing endow the puppet it’s own aesthetic beauty, personality, and emotions and feelings. Has Part CACPU_01, CACPU_02, CACPU_03, CACPU_04, CACPU_05, CACPU_06, CACPU_07, CACPU_08, CACPU_09, CACPU_10 Is Part Of Relation Reference Source AARPU_00 … … Has Part Is Part Of Has Part Is Part OfIs Part Of Sequential Relation Has Part Collection Type Folklore Craft Type Sub Collection Type Artistic Carving Title Selecting wooden blanks Subject Classified Number CACPU_01 Has Part Relation Is Part Of CACPU_00 Collection Type Folklore Craft Type Sub Collection Type Artistic Carving Title Sculpting work Subject Classified Number CACPU_02 Has Part Relation Is Part Of CACPU_00 Collection Type Folklore Craft Type Sub Collection Type Artistic Carving Title Applying varnish and hair application Subject Classified Number CACPU_10 Has Part Relation Is Part Of CACPU_00 Fig. 2. A metadata example for implementation of sequential and reference relations exchange among collectors and general citizens are embedded in the website. The web-based system is implemented under the protocol of XML which is an emerg- ing standard for a variety of interface types in distributed environments in general as well as in digital contents in particular. Basically, XML is a way of structuring . Scraping: 2. Splitting into strips: 3. Splitting into thinner strips: 4. Trimming width of bamboo strips: 5. Trimming thickness of ba mbo o strips: 6. Round mouth weaving technique: 7. Weaving the bottom 8 Examples of folklore artifacts, in which the artifacts were classified into ten categories including (a) clothing and jewelry, (b) kitchenware and dinnerware, (c) furnishings, (d) trans- portation,. consisted of multi-discipline scholars, including folklore specialists, archivists, and academic researchers majored in computer and information sciences. Their dimensions, originalities, functions,