The Dutch were trailblazers during the age of Euro-American maritime hegemony, making familiarity with the Dutch language of the period a necessity for scholars working on early Taiwanese and Southeast Asian history. While Taiwan was under Japanese rule, scholars from Taihoku Imperial University (the precursor to modern-day NTU) made photographs of documents in the Netherlands and brought the images back to Taiwan for study.
有鑑於荷蘭是歐洲海權時代的開啟者，要研究早期台灣史與南洋史必須接觸古荷蘭文，日治時期台北帝大的學者即曾遠赴荷蘭，以相機翻拍檔案，攜回台灣進行研究。