The Library of Congress has announced an agreement with the National Library of China to cooperate in developing the World Digital Library, which is scheduled for launch in April 2009. The two libraries have agreed to provide content to the World Digital Library and to cooperate in such areas as the development and maintenance of the Chinese-language interface, the convening of international working groups to plan and develop the project, and the formation of an advisory committee of leading scholars and curators to recommend important collections for inclusion in the World Digital Library.
The Web-based World Digital Library is spearheaded by the Library of Congress and other cultural institutions around the world in cooperation with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). Other institutions participating in the project include major libraries from Brazil, Egypt, Iraq, Israel, Russia, Serbia, and Sweden, the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, the John Carter Brown Library, and the libraries of Brown and Yale Universities.
Earlier in September this year, the Organization of American States (OAS) joined the Library of Congress in developing the World Digital Library. A Contributor Agreement was signed by both parties. Under the agreement, the OAS' Columbus Memorial Library will collaborate on the global library project.
The goal of the World Digital Library is to represent major world cultures in a way that contributes to better understanding among different cultures, as well as to serve the needs of scholars and researchers. The project will digitize and make available on the Internet, free of charge and in multilingual format, significant primary materials of many cultures, including manuscripts, maps, rare books, musical scores, recordings, films, prints, photographs, architectural drawings and other materials of interest both to scholars and the general public.
