Without any traveling a teacher in Tibet will be soon be able to consult a reference book in the National Library in Beijing simply by logging on to a national information-sharing network.

The network, due to be completed in 2005, is being set up across China with financial aid from the central government.

According to the Ministry of Culture the network aims to enable people in remote and poor western areas to share the cultural resources found in libraries, museums, art galleries, and research institutes in the affluent east.

By using modern information technology, cultural resources will be digitized and put onto the computer network which will be available throughout the country, Minister of Culture Sun Jiazheng said on Monday at a national conference on grassroots-level culture.

"The project which starts this year will create a brand new channel for the exchange of cultural information in China without the limits of time and space," said Sun, who also heads the construction of the network.

The construction of the computer network for libraries, museums, art centers, artistic institutes and groups and research institutes has made much progress and accumulated a large amount of digital cultural resources, according to the Ministry of Culture.

China's National Library is one of the project's key programs and will provide 10.78 million bibliotheca free to readers. The website of the National Library which already has 565 member libraries provides 60 million pages of full text visual data.

China's main telecommunication network has expanded over a large territory, covering the public Internet system in 200 cities in China and connecting 160 education and research networks in 160 cities.

High-tech communication systems, like Wide band network found in 17 key cities in Southeast China, China cable TV network -- the world's largest cable TV, and satellite high speed wide band multimedia communication network, put together, lay a solid technological foundation for the project.

Television with a special box for Internet access will enable 320 billion TV viewers to enjoy the rich cultural resources provided by the project.

"The project will play an important role in improving the present situation in the vast central western China, where the level of economic and cultural development and information exchange lags far behind coastal areas in the east," Sun said.

The first group of cities to be included in the project will submit their plans at the end of June, according to the Ministry of Culture.

(Xinhua News Agency April 22, 2002)