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Abstract: global Memory Net (GMNet) is intended to be an effective gateway to the world cultural, historical, and heritage image collections from selected academic educational and research partners in the world. Much of these unique collections of great value to education and research are not currently accessible due to distance, form, and technical barriers. This project is to find new ways to enable users to access and exploit these significant research collections via global network. As GMNet is ending its first 5-year phase in October 2005, it has contributed substantially to the community building in digital library development by accommodating numerous collaborators and technical staff from various parts of the world to spend 3 to 5 months as a full-member of the GMNet team in Boston. They have come from different parts of China—such as Sichuan, Hainan, Shanghai and Xi’an; Croatia; and Hanoi, Vietnam. In addition to contribute to the overall system development and enhancement of system functionalities, they have brought valuable sample image collections of their own institutions/countries, and actually developed prototype collections as a part of GMNet. This paper describes the exciting and productive experience of the first of this visiting research group in developing the GMNet’s Version 2.0 PHP-based system under Prof. Chen’s overall supervision. It also describes both the system’s technical level structure—user/Web-based application/data, and complex functionalities with multi-collection, multi-lingual, multi-modal searching capabilities; system management capabilities; as well as provisions for user uploads and retrieval for our own projects. This Version 2.0 system is built on the Linux/Apache/PHP/MySQL platform. What is described in this paper is an actual case which has formed a base for further new development by others in the research group. It demonstrates fully the value of the synergistic collaboration among global partners for universal digital library development. More information can be found in http://www.memorynet.org/.

[1] Chen, C.C., 2004a. Global Memory Net: New Collaboration, New Activities and New Potentials [Keynote Speech]. In: Digital Libraries: International Collaboration and Cross-Fertilization. Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Asian Digital Libraries (ICADL 2004), Shanghai, China. Springer-Verlag, Berlin, Germany, p.73-83.

[2] Chen, C.C., 2004b. Global Memory Net Offers the World Instantly: Potentials for Universal Access to Invaluable Chinese Contents [Keynote Speech]. Proceedings of Digital Library(Advance the Efficiency of Knowledge Utilization, Beijing, China. Scientific and Technical Documents Publishing House, Beijing, China, p.43-67.

[3] Chen, C.C., 2004c. The Promise of International Digital Library Collaboration for Innovative Use of Invaluable Resources [Keynote Speech]. In: Human Information Behaviour & Competences for Digital Libraries. Proceedings of the Libraries in the Digital Age, Dubrovnik and Mljet Island, Croatia. University J. J. Strossmayer in Osijek, Osijek, Croatia, p.7-15.

[4] Chen, C.C., 2004d. Global Memory Net: Potential and Challenges for Archiving and Sharing Cultural and Heritage Resources [Keynote Speech]. International Conference on Digital Libraries, Delhi, India. TERI (The Energy and Resources Institute), Delhi, India, 1:3-10.

[5] Chen, C.C., 2005a. New mode of universal access and Global Memory Net. Journal of Zhejiang University SCIENCE, 6A(11):1206-1215.

[6] Chen, C.C., 2005b. Digital Libraries and Universal Access in the 21st Century: Realities and Potential for US China Collaboration [Invited Speech]. Proceedings of The 3rd China-US Library Conference, Shanghai, China. National Library of China, Beijing, China, p.138-167.

[7] Chen, C.C., Wang, J.Z., 2002. Large-scale Emperor Digital Library and Semantics-sensitive Region-based Retrieval. The Proceedings of Digital Library(IT Opportunities and Challenges in the New Millennium, Beijing, China. Beijing Library Press, Beijing, China, p.454-462.