Abstract: Harvard University Chinese History Professor Peter K. Bol’s keynote report at the 9th Shanghai International Library Forum (SILF2018) discussed “Network Infrastructure” as a bridge to connect many independent databases in Chinese research has a vital meaning for the development of digital humanities. He believes that digital humanities is not only a tool, but a method and technical system that causes paradigm and theoretical change in the process of knowledge advancement. Taking the Chinese historical biographies database (CBDB) as an example, he explained the essential difference between the “relational database” and the commonly used text database in a simple way, and explained how the geographic information system (GIS), social network analysis, text analysis tools and platforms help to promote knowledge advances and lead to paradigm shifts and the birth of new theories. Finally, it is proposed to combine the research libraries to build the vision of the “Global Smart Data Platform”.

Key words: Digital humanities, Cyberinfrastructure, Social Network Analysis, Spacial analysis, Text analysis