Tech Shout!

As a part of its Print Project, Google has donated a massive amount of $3 million to the US library of Congress, in order to get the ball rolling in its ambitious plan to work with other national libraries around the world in order bring about a World Digital Library.

This step basically intend to crate digital copies of historical manuscripts, personal diaries, voice recordings and other cultural
items, held by national libraries the world over.

James Billington, librarian of Congress, said that he hopes to rope-in further private investment, to develop bi-lingual projects with libraries in India, China, and the Muslim countries, among others.

However Billington is of the view, that US leadership of something so close to the cultural roots of other nations is bound to induce opposition.

The project builds on existing digital documentary projects of the Library of Congress such as the American Memory Project, which has digitized over ten million items to create a documentary record of Americana.

However, the “World Digital Library is a move attempting to go beyond Europe and America, to create records of global cultures. In order to include a collection of Islamic scientific works ranging from the tenth to the sixteenth century into the “World Digital Library, At present the Library of Congress is said to be in discussions with the National Library of Egypt.

For the further development of the “World Digital Library, the Library of Congress is planning to contribute its own rich and exquisite collection aswell.

The Library of Congress also plans to contribute its own rich collection, towards making of the “World Digital Library”. Google will work with the Library of Congress on enhancing the standards for indexing digital collections, and will provide computer equipment.

The “World Digital Library Project” adds pace to a variety of other projects, aimed at making a vast range of reading material available online. Most prominent among these is the “Google Print Project”, wherein Google has teamed-up with 5 major academic libraries in order to digitize their book collections.

No doubt the “Google Print Project” has had its own share of opposition, with law-suits slapped against it by New York-based Authors Guild, plus five US publishers seeking to block Google’s plan to create an online card catalogue of copyright works.

On the other hand the Open Content Alliance (OCA) backed by Yahoo, Microsoft and others, is also looking at creating an online clearing-house for historic books, audio and films.