The State Development Planning Commission (SDPC) has recently approved the China Digital Library Project as a major development program in the next five years, an official with the Ministry of Culture told the press in Beijing Tuesday.

According to the ministry official Chen Qilin, the SDPC has decided that China will continue to build a number of major cultural facilities. Among them are the national grand theater and the digital library.

Vice Premier Li Lanqing said that to develop a digital library is to effectively use and share information resources to the benefit of society.

The project of digital library, including that of the second- phase construction of the National Library of China, will take five years and 1.142 billion yuan (US$137.59 million).

The library, a national key sci-tech development project, passed an experts assessment May 23, 2001. They believe the project is up to world standards.

The technology assessment commission headed by Dr. Zhang Bo, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, examined the trial library and decided that it will provide fundamental and essential technological conditions for building China's large-scale digital library.

Chinese are able to realize the dream of obtaining information at home today thanks to the digital library.

(People's Daily February 6, 2002)