World Digital Library

Getting closer to all knowledge available to everyone

Reported by Techman
"Global e-library focusing on relics," reported the inauguration of the World Digital Library (www.wdl.org), a Web site that seeks "to display and explain the relics of all human cultures."
"This ambitious project was the brainchild of the U.S. Librarian of Congress James Billington with the backing of the Library of Congress and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.

• The World Digital Library is bringing cultural objects online;
• the Encyclopedia of Life (eol.org) is posting information on every species on earth;
• The Universal Digital Library Million Book Collection (www.ulib.org), begun at Carnegie-Mellon University, is digitizing as many books as copyright allows.
• The European Library (theeuropeanlibrary.org) allows access to the holdings of the national libraries of 48 countries in Europe.
• The American Memory collection of the Library of Congress (memory.loc.gov) has more than 9 million items documenting U.S. history and culture.