World Digital Library Set to Launch on April 21
Andrew Albanese -- Library Journal, 04/08/2009
- Site goes live April 21
- Manuscripts, maps, rare books, and more
- Site browseable in seven languages
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(This article first appeared in the April 7 issue of the LJ Academic Newswire.)
The Library of Congress (LC) said this week that the World Digital Library (WDL) , an online partnership between LC, UNESCO, and 32 partner institutions to share cultural materials, will launch on April 21. A reception will be held that day at UNESCO’s Paris headquarters for partners and other special guests attending the semi-annual meeting of UNESCO’s executive board.
LC officials said the first edition of the site will include a wealth of manuscripts, maps, rare books, films, sound recordings, and prints and photographs, all available free to the public, browseable and searchable in seven languages (Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish) but with content offerings in “dozens of languages.”
Billington’s vision
The WDL was first proposed by Billington at a UNESCO meeting in 2005 as an effort to “bring people together by celebrating the depth and uniqueness of different cultures in a single global undertaking.”
Within a year of Billington’s vision, the WDL had an agreement, the planning process underwritten with “a gift” from Google, and by 2007, a prototype was ready, created through “a consultative process” between UNESCO and IFLA (the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions).
In 2006, Billington further told UNESCO delegates of his vision to “create an online encyclopedia, freely available over the Internet, of important and interesting cultural objects from the world’s countries and civilizations” that would reside in a “large, online repository that can be searched and used in different ways by teachers, librarians, scholars, and the general public.”
Another key aspect of the project, he added, was to “build digital library capabilities in the developing world, so that all countries and regions of the world can participate and be represented in the World Digital Library.”
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