About the World Digital Library Project
The World Digital Library will 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 to contribute to scholarly research.
The Planning Process
Librarian of Congress James H. Billington proposed the establishment of a World Digital Library (WDL) in a speech to the U.S. National Commission for UNESCO in June 2005. The Library of Congress is currently engaged in a planning process to determine how this vision can be realized. Participants in the planning process include national libraries and other libraries and cultural institutions from around the world that have expressed interest in joining the project, as well as UNESCO and IFLA. The planning process is being underwritten by a gift from Google, Inc.