This motivation has become increasingly evident since the Law on Cultural Heritage 2024 opened a new legal framework for the process digitising, connecting, and exploiting heritage data in the electronic environment.
Enhancing the national heritage data platform
In the national archives system, the digitisation process was deployed early and methodically, forming an important foundation for operating valuable information resources in the digital environment.
Dang Thanh Tung, Head of the State Records and Archives Department of Viet Nam, said that the department is managing “an extremely large and valuable volume of national archives, featuring more than 30km of document shelves, including two national treasures recognised by the Prime Minister and three world documentary heritages recognised by UNESCO.” This source of documents fully reflects the historical, cultural, diplomatic, and socio-economic progress of the country through many periods.
For many years, the department has proactively implemented digitisation since the legal corridor was not completed. The construction of technical processes, standardisation of operations, and formation of infrastructure have been carried out step by step, helping the whole industry establish a solid foundation to develop digitisation on a large scale today.
Currently, the digitisation focuses on four key issues, including building digitisation standards and data standards, perfecting the national archived data architecture framework with interoperability, enhancing digital data preservation and backup storage to ensure sustainability, and expanding the platform for exploiting documents to serve society, creating favorable conditions for people, researchers, and cultural and educational agencies to access documents.
Emphasising the three pillars of "data standards – ensuring authentication – inter-sectoral connection", Director Dang Thanh Tung said that unifying the description and data quality standards make it convenient to look up, share, and integrate information. These requirements have been specified in the specialised circular system issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs on digital documents. The authenticity of the digital copies is guaranteed by specialised technical and professional processes, serving both legal value and long-term exploitation demands.
In addition, the department promotes the development of common connection standards so that national archived data can be linked with heritage databases, museums, and digital exhibition platforms, forming a more open and transparent space for exploiting documents.
In the stage of applying modern technology, the State Records and Archives Department of Viet Nam continues to strengthen coordination with cultural agencies nationwide. "The application of new technologies such as 3D, VR, or artificial intelligence (AI) in the preservation and promotion of document values requires very close inter-sectoral coordination," said Director Dang Thanh Tung.
In that spirit, the department has identified three key directions of action, including: developing a secure and synchronous connection platform; building a specialised training program on digital technology, information security, and data management; and researching and promulgating digital process standards suitable for practice.
An important highlight is the orientation of resource mobilisation for digitalisation. Director Dang Thanh Tung said that the department is promoting the cooperation tradition between the two sectors to call on the participation of technology enterprises, research institutes, and social partners, while also promoting the socialisation of part of the funding in accordance with legal regulations. This is a direction to help expand financial and technical potential, creating conditions for the development of high-quality digital products.
In the coming time, the National Archives Centre will closely coordinate with cultural agencies to propose 3D digitisation of a collection of documents and artifacts to combine the construction of an online exhibition space, ensuring both information depth and visual elements. The combination of archival data and modern simulation technology helps spread the value of documents in an attractive way, suitable for the public's habit of accessing heritage in the digital age.
From archaeological documents to digital experiences
As a World Cultural Heritage, Thang Long Imperial Citadel possesses a particularly important collection of documents, artifacts, and relics, requiring modern preservation methods and more diverse approaches.
Nguyen Thanh Quang, Director of the Thang Long-Ha Noi Heritage Conservation Centre, said that digital transformation is identified as a key task in the current period. Solutions are being deployed synchronously, meeting management and research requirements while improving the experience of domestic and foreign tourists.
First of all, all archaeological records, research documents, and technical drawings are being standardised and digitised systematically. With a large volume of documents, the digitisation is carried out according to standards that ensure accuracy, connectivity, and long-term exploitation.
Additionally, the centre promotes the digitisation of relics and artifacts using 3D technology and high-resolution digital photos, creating a rich image database to serve scientific research, modern display, and support to reenact ancient royal court rituals in a more realistic and attractive manner.
More importantly, the centre is building an integrated database as a digital infrastructure for all heritage management activities. Once completed, this system will become a centralised data warehouse serving in-depth research, conservation work, and communication education programmes. This is also a platform for information connectivity between research, display, and guidance units, as well as supports long-term management of archaeological relics and artifacts in the heritage site.
Display activities are deployed diversifiedly in both direct and online environments. In addition to physical exhibitions, the centre organises many online displays, 3D spaces, 360-degree tours, and virtual tours, creating conditions for the public to access the heritage regardless of any geographical location.
New technology applications are being applied at many levels: simulating the space of Kinh Thien Palace, recreating solemn rituals such as the Court Audience Ceremony or Imperial Palace Exam in the Le Dynasty; introducing the system of relics and artifacts using 3D mapping (3D image light projection); and 3D tours of the Thang Long Imperial Palace exhibition area and the archaeological site at No. 18 Hoang Dieu Street with visual images and full information links.
The explanation is standardised and modernised strongly. Audio guide devices (automatic audio explanation devices), tour guide devices, documentary films, and automatic explanation applications via phone help visitors actively explore and interact with information. Viewers can look up documents, watch reenacted models, or interact on the large screen in the exhibition area.
The websites hoangthanhthanglong.vn and thanhcoloa.vn continue to serve as open archives, in which archives, research results, publications, and forms of education heritage are published.
Nguyen Thanh Quang emphasised that digitalisation contributes to preserving, protecting, and promoting heritage values in a more vivid and accessible way, creating a widespread influence in the community, especially among young people. The centre is orienting the development of a digital experience ecosystem using 3D, 360-degree, VR, and AR technology; expanding online tours; digital explanations using QR codes (information lookup codes); and continuing to deploy the application of interpretation technology at revolutionary relics in the heritage area, such as House and Tunnel D67.
In the coming time, 3D mapping technology will be used to tell historical stories through feudal dynasties. With the combination of images, sounds, artistic effects, and royal context, these projections will help visitors approach history through a captivating visual experience, while bringing Thang Long Imperial Citadel closer to the community, beyond the limits of traditional exhibition spaces.
Heritage data synchronisation strategy
In order to meet modern management requirements, the Law on Cultural Heritage passed by the National Assembly on November 23, 2024, has opened an important legal corridor to promote digital transformation in the heritage sector. Assoc. Prof. Dr. Le Thi Thu Hien, Head of the Department of Cultural Heritage, said that the Law has affirmed the role of digital technology in protecting and promoting heritage values, while clearly defining the responsibilities of management agencies, organisations, and individuals in the digitisation process.
The law also fully addresses rights related to digital heritage data, including intellectual property rights and digitalised product protection rights, creating a legal basis to promote the effective sharing, interconnection, and exploitation of cultural heritage resources in the electronic environment, in accordance with the Law on Intellectual Property, the Law on Electronic Transactions, the Law on Cyber Security, and other legal provisions.
Currently, the draft decree guiding the implementation of the Law on Cultural Heritage is being developed with a separate chapter of 10 articles, specifically regulating the development of science, technology, innovation, and digital transformation in the field of cultural heritage. The key contents of this chapter include technical standards, data management processes, database system operation requirements, and implementation steps.
According to Le Thi Thu Hien, this is an important foundation for building a national database on cultural heritage, operating uniformly from the central to local levels and meeting the national data interconnection requirements in the process of digital government, digital economy, and digital society building.
Along with perfecting the legal framework, the digitisation of heritage is being implemented according to the "green, sufficient, clean, alive, unified, shared" principles, which ensure that digitised data is of high quality, updatable, and reusable over a long period of time while supporting inventory, impact assessment, and heritage records management.
Once completed, the national database will become an open lookup space that helps heritage be widely accessible, facilitating education, research, promotion, and long-term preservation. This is also the foundation for developing the cultural industry through electronic exhibitions, digital maps, sightseeing applications, and heritage education products, contributing to exploitation of cultural heritage for socio-economic development.
Director Le Thi Thu Hien said that promoting heritage values in the digital environment requires a combination of technology and human factors, especially respecting the role of the community, the subject of creating and preserving heritage. Therefore, protecting intellectual property rights and the rights of artisans and communities in the digital environment is considered an important requirement to ensure the sustainability of the digitalisation process while avoiding misuse or commercialisation unsuitable with cultural identity.
At the same time, the Department of Cultural Heritage strengthens cooperation between museums, relic sites, and creative enterprises to deploy modern applications such as virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), artificial intelligence (AI), 3D image lighting, and 3D digital space to renew the approach to heritage. These technologies help traditional arts, especially folk performances, appear more attractively on digital platforms and attract domestic and international tourists. Meanwhile, the tourism industry and localities are encouraged to coordinate in developing cultural tourism products associated with digital experiences, from online tours and electronic exhibitions to interactive activities and creative experiences.
According to Director Le Thi Thu Hien, digital transformation contributes to improving the effectiveness of state management, protecting and promoting the value of cultural heritage, and promoting sustainable development. The application of technology to heritage expands opportunities to create livelihoods for the community and increases cultural experiences for people and tourists in the digital context.
Therefore, digitising heritage is opening new approaches, helping cultural values to be preserved sustainably and spread more widely. When the data infrastructure and legal framework are synchronised, heritage will continue to promote its value in modern life.
