The Council of Agriculture (COA) yesterday launched a “virtual agricultural museum” to improve public access to information about the nation’s agricultural industry and ecosystems.
“In the past, organizations under the COA [including the forestry bureau, the Agriculture and Food Agency and the Fisheries Agencies] have made good videos showcasing their projects,” said Jane Lin (林貞), the director of the COA’s information management center and curator of the online archive.
“However, most of the time the videos are made into DVDs and distributed to [a limited group of people] who may not have time to watch them right away ... By the time they want to watch it, they have already misplaced the DVD,” she said.
The Web site will make the videos a public resource, Lin said, since “electronic storage and computer hardware can be purchased at low costs and Internet bandwidth is now able to accommodate online streaming of the videos.”
The archive contains about 400 video clips, with about 300 on agriculture-related news provided courtesy of television stations. The other 100 were produced by COA departments, Lin said.
“We expect to add many more to the collection,” she said. “The videos are divided into five categories: aspects of agriculture, sustainable living, the ecosystem, classic impressions and agricultural research, so that people can learn about everything from Taiwan’s rare, indigenous birds to how mangos are harvested and the life cycle of crabs.”
Lin said it was the council’s hope that the public, after watching the videos, would want to visit scenic spots.
By registering on the Web site, people can vote for and comment on the videos, bookmark favorites and upload their own videos for contests, Lin said.
The archive can be inspected at video.coa.gov.tw.
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