A Study of the Government Archive Image Processing Work : from Perspective of the Crisis Management

[[abstract]]Archives are for the recordings of governmental projects, social activities, as well as shared memories for the human history and accumulation of the cultural thread of thoughts. It allows us to reflect on the past and look forward to the future as though we were on the shoulders of a giant and able to stand at a high altitude and see through a far distance. However, “crisis” comes along with it just as the shadow sticks to its object. For government archives, once they are destroyed by natural disasters or human forgeries, not only people’s rights are not protected but also the political and economic developments of a nation are greatly impaired. Thus the image of government is badly hurt. In view of the increasing uncertainty of this risky era due to the intertwined effect of the nature’s revenge, frequently occurred disasters, rapid growth of technology, cultural conflict, and media’s exaggeration report, any foreseeable crisis needs to be taken precautious measure. Here we will research on how to preserve the text and picturesque data of government archives by micrographic or digitalization (image processing) and develop applications for them. Furthermore, we will take an overall view of crisis analysis and study for the government archive image processing tasks. This study suggests: 1. In order to keep the archive data safe, we must back up the archives on locations far apart and keep the originals in a safe place. Only the backup copies are available for people to look up or use. 2. The government should make different image processing policies according to the needs of different archives’ storage requirements. For long term preservation, micrographic archives are desirable, but for short term storage, digitalization may just be necessary for the job. For both short term and long term applications, the archives should apply both techniques in the same time. 3. For the sake of preserving the roll microfilm’s integrity and taking advantages of the information techniques, the procedure of doing micrographic should reverse the order of micrographic and digitalization, that is, digitalization should precede micrographic. 4. Set up a national-level, full-fledge archives storage room by harnessing the power of electronic and information technology. 5. Set up professional license certification system for archive professionals to maintain high quality archive achievement for doing their jobs, hoping to help the related government agencies properly plan their archive image processing policies.