Traditional village digital archival conservation: a case study from Gaoqian, China

Abstract

ABSTRACT Archiving in traditional villages has been carried out for nearly 20 years in China. The conventional practice is to establish registration records for the basic information and cultural heritage of traditional villages combined with collecting historical records. This research develops a digital archival model to strengthen traditional village conservation. The theoretical framework of this model arises from a case study of Gaoqian, a typical traditional Chinese village with 1000 years of history. Through field investigation and document analysis, Gaoqian’s experience is summarized into a paradigm of traditional village digital archival conservation. There are three modules in this paradigm: a digital archival resource system, a digital archival management system, and a digital archival service system adhering to the culture-centred principle. This model transforms the initial cultural resources to digital archival resources and then to digital cultural products through strict life-cycle management. The whole working process needs the cooperation and participation of multiple subjects. The case of Gaoqian demonstrates that traditional village digital archival conservation is simultaneously universal and scene-oriented, which can provide replicable solutions for traditional villages or rural landscape conservation in other regions during ongoing world urbanization, with the appropriate archival perspective and methods.