From hand-written rice paper to Internet publication, the format of government bulletins entered a new electronic era as the Cabinet launched an integrated online edition of the Executive Yuan Gazette (
In addition to the online edition, the publication will continue to be published in printed volumes daily, except for weekends and national holidays.
The official bulletin is designed to integrate 20 government bulletins published by the Executive Yuan and various ministries.
The online edition is not yet completely English friendly, because readers can only find brief English introductions to certain laws and regulations. More detailed information will be gradually added to the electronic volumes.
Official bulletins are not a product of modern democracies, according to the Study on the Publication of Government Bulletins written by Yeh Chun-jung (
"In the history of the East and West, public bulletins appeared as early as the dictatorial era and gradually evolved to its current form," the study said.
In the West, government gazettes are believed to have first appeared in Venice, Italy in the 16th century.
The London Gazette (originally called The Oxford Gazette) is believed to be the world's oldest continuously published newspaper.
It is still published with authority as it has been since it was established by Charles II when the Court, or the government of the time, was removed to Oxford during the Great Plague of 1665.
When the Court returned to London, the name was then changed to its current title.
Nowadays, there are three official journals for the UK, Scotland and Northern Ireland. They are: the London Gazette, the Edinburgh Gazette and the Belfast Gazette.
In ancient China, public announcements of the imperial palace first appeared during the Han Dynasty.
The Di Bao (
Such notices were handwritten on rice paper and copies were delivered by messengers on horseback and posted nationwide.
During the Qing Dynasty, Di Bao was renamed Jing Bao (
In the middle of the Qing Dynasty, independent newspaper companies took over the printing job as printing houses produced inconsistent information and the content was full of errors.
In addition, the printing quality was poor and delivery of the bulletins was often delayed because of poor postal services.
The year of 1907 saw the first official gazette published by the imperial palace. The publication covered 10 different categories. They included imperial notices, officials' reports to the emperor, laws, regulations, treaties and advertisement.
The publication of gazettes continued after the fall of the Qing Dynasty.
The Nationalist Government Gazette (
Its name was changed to the Presidential Office Gazette (
Taiwan saw the publication of its first official gazette in 1896 during the Japanese colonial era. The Taiwan Governor's Office Paper (
The edition covered imperial orders of the Japanese emperor, government budget and public notices.
Ho Sha-luen (
The Executive Yuan did not start publishing the Executive Yuan Gazette until 1995.
Before the online edition was launched, 19 out of the Executive Yuan's 36 agencies printed their own bulletins in paper copies and with different frequencies.
The remaining 17 agencies published their public notices on the Executive Yuan Gazette.
Electronic editions of the 19 public bulletins and the Executive Yuan Gazette were not created until 2002 and 1999 respectively.
All the electronic editions, however, were processed by the National Central Library and published on the library's Web site.
In addition to the Executive Yuan Gazette, the Presidential Office and the other four government branches published their own public bulletins.
Altogether, there are 52 publicly printed government bulletins nationwide.
While the commission contracts the Central News Agency to handle the codification and key-in of the on-line edition of the Executive Yuan Gazette, Ho said that it would only make sense to establish a standing body to take care of the matter in the future.
"It's a miracle that we manage to pull this off with so few people and in such a short period of time," Ho said, adding that his 13-person department was not entrusted with the task until July last year.
The first day of the test run in last December was a disaster, Ho said. The computer program could not handle the influx of information pouring in from government agencies and the engineer had to reprogram the system.
"Frankly speaking, I don't like relying on miracles, because if they don't happen, we're screwed," he said.
People interested in finding out more about the Executive Yuan Gazette are welcome to visit its Web site at http://gazette.nat.gov.tw.
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