• 2021-04-29

2021 TIBE Korean Guest of Honor Exhibition
With a global pandemic at large, the 2021 TIBE was still held online. This caused some to remember back on the amazing sights of previous years. The first TIBE was held in December 1987 at the National Central Library. The theme was “Finding Wisdom in Knowledge; Using Tradition to Start a New Phase.” NLC Director-General Shu-hsien Tseng stated that last year and this year TIBE was affected by the pandemic and force to cancel physical exhibitions. However, in an effort to satisfy the public’s passion for the international book fair and to help the public remember when TIBE was held at NLC, Korea’s Country of Honor exhibition at TIBE was put on display on February 18 at NCL’s Cultural Art Center exhibition room. It was on display for one month. This was a great opportunity to collaborate with the Korean Publishers Association.

The President of the Korean Publishers Association Yoon Chul-ho said, “It is extremely significant that the 2021 Taipei International Book Exhibition (TIBE) remains a physical event, particularly when the publishing industry worldwide is now facing the threat posed by COVID-19.” Because of this, they teamed up with the Literature Translation Institute of Korea to design their country booth for 2021. They were excited to introduce Korean books and culture, as well as to echo the current Korean publications. The exhibition showcased a selection of XYZ books, planned by the book designer Seong-eun Cho. The theme was to show that while environmental pollution, climate change, COVID-19 pandemic, and other crises are worse than they have ever been, we all are living on the same planet. There are several layers of meaning behind “XYZ”: gender, a worsening environment, and different generations. On display in this exhibition are the intersectionality of different literary works from the same age. Content includes 100 volumes recommended by famous celebrities, including renowned folk singer Sawol Kim, works of literature related to the XYZ theme, humanities and social science publications. All of these are closely tied to the three key ideas: sustainability, connected with the times, and my network. With regards to children’s publishing, the theme was “People in the Future,” and showcased 54 illustrated books that have been catching the world’s attention. In addition, the Korean Publishers Association selected 15 children’s books from the Seoul International Book Fair, each a masterpiece in its own right.

Director-General Tseng stated that NLC spares no effort in promoting reading and international cultural exchange. As such, each year it actively attends international book fairs and build reading bridges with countries around the world. This opens doors for foreign books on exhibition to be archived at NCL so that patrons who were not able to attend the book exhibitions can read the books at a later date. For this event, the Korean Publishers Association brought 169 volumes of books to donate to NCL before the exhibition began. Director-General Tseng not only welcomed Taiwanese who like Korean culture and care about various issues related to Korea to come to the exhibition at NLC to thumb through the books, she also emphasized that this is an amazing opportunity for public libraries to select some Korean language books for their collections. Furthermore, she hoped that the publishing industry would not miss out on the opportunity to view the beauty of Korean publishing, including the words, the creative element, the editing, and the printing.

Remembering Going to School Interactive Exhibition
To help the public easily learn literature and history, National Central Library has utilized interactive technology and its rich holdings to put on the Remembering Going to School Interactive Exhibition. It began on February 18 and was on display in NLC’s Cultural Arts Center exhibition room. The public could enjoy R&D achievements using AR, VR, and AI technologies as a way to interactively read with the texts. This exhibition has three main parts:

1. Use AR as a high school student to experience 100 years of education in Taiwan

The exhibition unit brought together precious resources in NLC’s Taiwan Memory database with Assisted Reality (AR) technology to let patrons play the role of a high school student who could travel through time. This way they can travel classrooms in the Japanese occupation, the period of martial law, the post-martial law period to interact and speak with students, teachers, or military instructors at the time and experience different learning atmospheres from the three periods. At the same time, it incorporates the teaching plans and instructions from the unit on “Two Mandarin Movements” from the 2019 history curriculum. This can help students understand the various aspects of education development in Taiwan over the last 100 years. There was also a corresponding book exhibition, displaying the history of various publishers and Chinese textbooks from after modern textbooks were made available.

2. Use VR to see what an author’s life is like and experience soft content of literature

Impression Sun VR received the 1st XR Golden Award for producing an interactive VR video based on two classic chapters of Lang Lin’s Little Sun: “A One-Room House” and “Little Sun.” Users can experience the wonderful feeling of a newly married couple or a father taking care of his young child. Impression Sun VR also designed a set of lesson plans to enable the VR video to be used in the classroom. This allows teenage students into step into the imaginative world of the author and experience a new way to read literature and realize the possibility of a flipped classroom.  

3. Using Interactive AI to Learn Poetry and Increase Literature Capabilities

The “Poetry-Language in Motion: Poetry and Terms Interactive Learning Platform” utilizes AI and human-computer interface technology to design a game website that aided children in reading and learning. Poetry includes 82 selections from the Northern and Southern Dynasties, Tang, Song, Qing, and the Japanese-occupation period. The website provides different games, such as rearranging lines of poetry and Chinese scrabble. These can help students repeatedly learn and simulate motivation by bringing together interesting poetry and modern Chinese vocabulary. In addition, Chinese scrabble can be played with terms or idiomatic expressions. These online knowledge games are great fun and helpful for learning common poetic expressions.

NCL Director-General Tseng stated that this exhibition showcases one of the accomplishments of NLC’s receiving funding from the Ministry of Education to for three digital humanities projects. “Remembering Going to School Interactive Exhibition,” “Impression Sun VR Interactive Exhibit” and “Poetry | Language in Motion: Poetry and Terms Interactive Learning Platform” showcase collaborative achievements that bring together libraries, universities, high schools, and elementary schools. Exploring interactive reading experiences through digital humanities, NLC has become a great learning spot for developing digital creative services.

This exhibition made use of NLC’s rich and diverse holdings, bringing together digital technology and school curriculum. It is an excellent choice for a fieldtrip. School classes are invited to sign up for a group tour. NLC also designed worksheets suitable for elementary to high school students to fill out as a way to encourage students to experience a trip back to historical literature through interactive technology.