NTU Buddhist Library and Museum Listed in the World’s 100 Digital Libraries

NTU’s Digital Library and Museum of Buddhist Studies (DLMBS) was established by Prof. Heng-Ching Shih (釋恆清) in 1995. Not only has the DLMBS been chosen by the National Central Library, four years in a row, as the representative website for religious and social studies in its annual publication Selected Digital Resources for Chinese Studies in Taiwan, the website is also the only Chinese, religion-related, and Taiwan-based digital library to have ranked in the 100 Extensive University Libraries from Around the World that Anyone Can Access compiled by “CollegeDegree.com.”

According to the NTU Research Center for Digital Humanities, the unit responsible for maintaining and operating the website, the DLMBS is devoted to compiling bibliographies, full-text articles, and other research resources related to Buddhist studies. Until today, the library has kept a bibliography consisting of over 400,000 entries and more than 40,000 full-text articles in 45 languages and 15 types of data, not to mention its online scriptures, language lessons, Buddhist museum, as well as the Buddhist Author Authority Database that provides a list of nearly 100,000 authors. With this abundance and variety of collections and resources, the DLMBS is second to none among websites featuring religious studies.

Currently, the DLMBS’s users span 212 countries worldwide with 7,000 visits per day. Having received nearly 20,000,000 visits cumulatively since its launch in 2006, the website is also highly recognized by the international academia and scholars of Buddhist studies. The DLMBS is indeed one of NTU’s major contributions to the development of academic digital resources for the international academia.