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Unesco Puts World's Major Works Online
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LinkedinDiggFacebookMixxMySpaceYahoo! BuzzPermalinkBy ERIC PFANNER
Published: April 21, 2009
PARIS — One of the world’s oldest novels has just become one of the newest.

“The Tale of Genji,” an 11th century Japanese romp that is sometimes called the first true novel, is among about 1,250 books, maps, artworks and other cultural items that went on display online Tuesday in an international library supported by Unesco and the U.S. Library of Congress.

The project, called the World Digital Library, aims to “promote international and intercultural understanding,” said James H. Billington, the U.S. librarian of Congress, speaking as the Web site (www.wdl.org) was introduced at Unesco headquarters in Paris.

“This is a truly international undertaking,” said Dr. Billington, who has been working on the project since proposing it to Unesco four years ago.

The library, which draws material from more than 30 national libraries and other institutions from around the world, joins a growing number of programs that have set out to digitally archive cultural material.

The European Commission, for example, is supporting a project called Europeana, which gathers material from European libraries, museums, audiovisual archives and other institutions. Some national libraries have their own digital projects, while participating in international initiatives. The Bibliothèque Nationale de France, for instance, is participating in Europeana and the World Digital Library, while operating its own digital archive, Gallica.

Meanwhile, Google has embarked on a mission to scan millions of books into digital form, some of which are also included in the public sector digitization projects.

Google has supported the World Digital Library with a $3 million grant — part of $10 million in funding from a variety of organizations — and Dr. Billington said the goals of his project differed from those of Google Book Search. Much of the material in the World Digital Library is of historical interest and, unlike Google Book Search, it does not include copyrighted works.

For now, Europeana, with about five million items, has a far broader range of material than the World Digital Library, with about 1,250 objects.

Jill Cousins, the executive director of Europeana, said she had spoken with representatives of the World Digital Library about ways in which the two projects might be able to cooperate, but added that there were no specific plans in the works.

“Because both of us are at the beginning, you have to get your hands around what is possible at the time,” she said. Europeana, set up with only €1.2 million, or $1.6, over 18 months, now was operating on a three-year, €6.2 million budget supplied by the European Commission.

Dr. Billington said the World Digital Library did not intend to compete against projects like Europeana, saying institutions would be free to provide material to both sites. The world library will grow as more organizations join it, he said. Member institutions can decide which works to make available, though in cooperation with a working group from the project.

“This is not something that’s determined by quotas in advance,” he said. “It’s open-ended how large it will become. We wanted to set a standard of quality and build on it, then ramp up the quantity.”

The site can be searched by a number of criteria, including the geographic origin or the time period in which items were created. Background information accompanying each object, like the author or artist, the source and a description, is translated into seven languages: English, French, Spanish, Russian, Chinese, Arabic and Portuguese.

The site already contains links to material relevant to all 192 Unesco members, though the selection is far from comprehensive. A search for the items related to Germany, for instance, includes an 1853 “Emigrant’s Map and Guide for Routes to North America,” from the Library of Congress, but nothing about World War II or the Third Reich.

Two regions — Latin America and the Middle East — are particularly well represented at the outset, reflecting the active involvement of institutions like the National Library of Brazil, the Bibliotheca Alexandrina of Egypt and King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia. The project also received funding from the Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development.

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