Researchers in southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region are racing against the clock to digitalize intangible cultural heritage as the region's Tibetan folk masters reach old age.

Since 2005, the autonomous region has collected more than 100,000 stories, 1,500 videos and 40,000 photos of intangible cultural heritage for a digital database, said Ngawang Dainzin, head of the Tibet's Protection Center for Intangible Cultural Heritage.

So far, the database includes multimedia for 114 Tibetan operas, information on 89 intangible cultural heritage programs and details on 68 state-level successors, as well as information on more than half of the regional-level programs and successors, he said.

"The masters are a 'living dictionary' of intangible cultural heritage. The digitization work will better preserve the classic cultural heritage of the Tibetan ethnic group," he said.

The digital protection covers ten categories such as folk literature, traditional music, dance, arts, handicrafts and medicine.

In recent years, folk masters have passed away without passing on their special knowledge or were too ill to train the next generation.