According to this article on the Chicago Tribune, the World Digital Library has launched. Though it is based at the Paris headquarters of UNESCO, the WDL so far contains about 1,200 documents from all over the world, with scholarly explanations in 8 different languages (Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Portuguese, Spanish, and Russian). It was launched in cooperation with the Library of Congress and is an extension of the U.S. National Digital Library Program. The World Digital Library was also developed by UNESCO, the Bibliotheca Alexandrina of Alexandria, Egypt, the National Library of Brazil, the National Library of Egypt, the National Library of Russia, and the Russian State Library.
The wonderful thing about this is that it provides free access to cultural treasures from around the world, to anyone in the world that has internet access. Manuscripts, recordings, books, films, prints, and photos, as well as their respective authoritative descriptions, are made available to people that previously may have never been able to explore such items in person.
I went to the site to explore it a bit and see if it was all it was cracked up to be. As far as the accumulated knowledge of humanity, there isn't a whole lot at this point. It only holds the materials that those libraries are willing and able to share. This is, however, just the launch, and the library has unlimited potential for the amount of documents they would be able to provide. A quick look at the website revealed an easily searchable and intuitive structure, that should be easy for adults and children alike to navigate. It makes me hopeful for the future of digital libraries and online repositories of information...hopeful that one day all scholarly information will be free to everyone. That might seem ridiculous now, with the rising costs of databases, but I continue to dream.
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This topic really wows me. Technology continues to be incorporated into our lives on a daily basis. How do people keep up with it?
ReplyDeleteThis world wide digital source in just another facet of the never-ending ways to make the world a smaller and more accessible place for everyone in it. Can you imagine how wonderful it will be after the up and coming funding is correctly applied to our country's infrastructures? The results can be even more advantageous than we can even predict. Is it just too optimistic of me to believe thtat we, as imperfect human beings actually will put this money where it really belongs?
Well I'm glad 2 people posted on this topic-it deserves it! You pointed out that the site was easily searchable, and I agree. I love how the front page has all of the countries laid out, showing the number of items-very simple yet impactful. And I am (I hate to say it) just now learning about digital repositories and such (I'm actually doing some research with Dr. Xia on the topic), so I was so glad to see this resource-I can't believe how much is out there, and I also look forward to the day it will be accessible to all.
ReplyDeleteI was really excited to read about this, and another of my classes discussed it a week or so ago. I think the thing that excites me the most is that two of the developing libraries are in Egypt:)
ReplyDeleteI poked around on the site a couple of weeks ago and was all excited to find the Tales of Genji, considered to be the first novel ever written. A Japanese woman, Murasaki Shikibu, wrote it a thousand years ago. So knowing all of that why was I surprised when I pulled it up? It was in Japanese. I had one of those "duh" moments when I realized the version I read was, of course, a translation. ;-)
ReplyDeleteIt is really whiz-bang neat, isn't it?
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