中央研究院近代史研究所自1997年開始投入典籍、史料、檔案的數位化工作，期望藉由數位化及網路的結合，推廣近現代歷史之研究資源與教育。收錄在本院漢籍電子文獻資料庫下的《近代史全文資料庫》，至今陸續完成的史料資料庫已累積有7,800萬餘字。檔案館多年來持續進行外交及經濟部門檔案之數位化工作，建置《館藏檢索系統》及《人名權威檢索系統》，並且提供原檔影像瀏覽服務。胡適紀念館則推動《胡適檔案資料庫》的建置，將不同媒材載體的檔案，轉製為數位檔，以利於典藏，並建立資料庫管理系統，便於學者查考與使用。圖書館所建置的《報刊資料檢索系統》，整合近代報紙、期刊、公報等不同類型的資料，提供影像檔瀏覽及metadata資料查詢功能。近兩年來，本所資料庫小組開始建置各類主題式資料庫，如《英華字典資料庫》、《近代春秋TIS系統》、《近現代人物資訊整合系統》等，各資料庫間有相互關聯的查詢功能，期望以人、事、時、地、物各要項為主題，建構整體性的歷史資料庫群組。
2014年，我們集合現有的數位學術資源—圖書館、檔案館、胡適紀念館、資料庫小組所建立的資料庫以及館際合作計畫，組成近代史數位資料庫( MHDB, Modern History Databases )，提供使用者明確的個別資料庫登入方式及使用說明，並強化跨資料庫查詢功能，成為近代史數位研究資源整合平台。
Since 1997, The Modern History Institute of Academia Sinica has invested in the digitalization of its rare books, historical sources, and documents in the hope that digitalization and internet access could be used to promote research resources and education in modern and contemporary Chinese history. At this point, the Modern Historical Documents Full-Text Database housed within Academia Sinica’s Scripta Sinica database contains more than 78,000,000 characters.
For many years now the archive has continued to digitalize documents related to foreign diplomacy and economics and established the “Collection Search System” and the “Authoritative Names Retrieval System.” The archive also offers a browsing service for images of original documents. The Hu Shih Memorial Hall has advanced the development of the Hu Shih Archive Database, which took documents from different media carriers and transformed them into digitalized documents in order to set up the database administrative system and to facilitate scholarly searches and use.
The Newspaper and Periodical Search System developed by the library consolidates modern newspapers, periodicals, official bulletins and other different types of data and provides image archive browsing and metadata search functions. During the past two years, the MHDB team began building different types of thematic databases, such as the English-Chinese Dictionary Database, the Modern Annals TIS System, the Integrated Information System on Modern and Contemporary Characters, and so forth. Within each database there are relevant search functions. The hope is that for each subject, the person, event, time, place, and object, that is, each important element can be incorporated to construct a comprehensive historical database.
In 2014, we consolidated our digitalized academic resources—the library, the archive, the Hu Shih Memorial Hall, the databases set up by MHDB team as well as the interlibrary cooperation program to create the Modern History DataBases (MHDB). We offer users a fast and accurate database login method and user’s guide to facilitate full use of our database services.
