Digitizing cultural heritage in Hong Kong: An overview

Abstract

<p>As a special administrative region in China with a unique historical root, Hong Kong stands as an international financial centre and a multicultural metropolitan city. Rich in not only economic but also cultural resources, Hong Kong houses a remarkable number of statutorily graded historic buildings, officially recognized intangible cultural heritage items, and movable cultural heritage to be systematically documented. A variety of stakeholders in Hong Kong have initiated, supported, and participated in different types of cultural heritage digitisation projects. Nevertheless, there is a lack of a comprehensive and up-to-date overview of these projects. To fill this gap, this chapter surveys cultural heritage digitisation projects in Hong Kong both in the literature and in practice. In particular, this chapter summarizes the approaches adopted in these projects and reports the development trends. Our findings reveal the multi-layered objectives of these projects, their different funding sources and modes of collaboration, their selection of cultural heritage types and project themes, as well as their adoption of technologies and user involvement. Based on these findings, this chapter discusses the multifaceted facilitating factors, limitations and challenges of these projects, and recommends best practices for future projects in Hong Kong and beyond.<br></p>