World Digital Library Totally Explained

Everything about The World Digital Library totally explained

The World Digital Library is a project of the Library of Congress to make available on the Internet, free of charge and in multilingual format, significant primary materials from cultures around the world, including manuscripts, maps, rare books, musical scores, recordings, films, prints, photographs, architectural drawings, and other significant cultural materials. The objectives of the World Digital Library are to promote international and inter-cultural understanding and awareness, provide resources to educators, expand non-English and non-Western content on the Internet, and contribute to scholarly research.

History

The Beginning

After almost 20 years of absence, the United States re-established its permanent delegation to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in 2003. Dr. James H. Billington, Librarian of Congress, was nominated as a Commissioner of the U.S. National Commission to UNESCO and was invited to give a plenary speech at its first annual conference in June 2005. His speech, titled A View of the Digital World Library, described a vision in which the rich collections that “institutions, libraries, and museums have preserved could be given back to the world free of charge and in a new form far more universally accessible than any forms that have preceded it.” Google Inc. became the first partner of this public-private partnership and in 2005 donated $3 million to support development of the World Digital Library.

The Planning Stage

At the National Commission’s 2006 annual conference, Dr. John Van Oudenaren, Senior Advisor for the World Digital Library at the Library of Congress, outlined a project plan for bringing Dr. Billington’s vision to fruition. Foremost was the belief that the World Digital Library should engage partners in planning the four main projects areas: technical architecture, selection, governance, and funding. This was achieved in December 2006, when 45 national library directors, library technical directors, and cultural and educational representatives from UNESCO met in Paris to discuss the development of the World Digital Library. The participants formed working groups to address the special challenges of each of the four project areas.

Current Progress

The planning process continues. The working groups met in the first half of 2007 and included professionals in the field of digital libraries – including but not limited to computer science, library and information science, Web development, and fundraising. The working groups presented their findings to the larger WDL group in July 2007. Findings from this planning process were presented at the 34th session of the UNESCO General Conference in October 2007 in Paris, France.

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