There are two dimensions of archive digitization. One is the preservation of the culture heritages in their original conditions, and the other, which is a far more important contribution, lies in the valuable applications and the metadata provided aside from the original text. Recently, the content of many Buddhist digital archives projects processed in our university contains a lot of geographic data, through which we come up with the idea of introducing the geographic information system (GIS) to the digitization of Buddhist archives. By combining GIS with the digitization of Buddhist archives, information can be presented visually and new insights may appear. In this essay, we will introduce several GIS related digitization projects, and analyze the function and effects of the application of GIS in each project. We hope our experiences in GIS-related digitization of Buddhist archives will benefit other digital archives projects in sharing the advantages GIS technology brings.
