stefan
10-18-2007, 02:15 PM
World Digital Library's prototype unveiled
The Associated Press
PARIS: Listen to a former American slave tell his story. Turn the pages of a book about ancient treasures from Egypt. Pore over old maps written in Latin.
Reporters in Paris got a peak Wednesday at a prototype for the World Digital Library, an online initiative by the U.S. Library of Congress, the U.N. cultural body UNESCO and international partner libraries. Officials are aiming for a 2008 launch of the online site.
Abdul Waheed Khan, UNESCO's assistant director-general for communication and information, and the U.S. Librarian of Congress James H. Billington signed an agreement to forge ahead on the project Wednesday. The concept is modeled on the Library of Congress' American Memory project, which debuted in the 1990s and now has 11 million history-related items online.
The international digital library will be free and multilingual, with contributions from around the world, including rare books, films, prints, sound recordings and musical scores.
John Van Oudenaren, senior adviser for the initiative, gave a guided tour of the prototype, showing off documents such as New World maps, historic photographs from Brazil and a 1949 audio file of a former American slave. The prototype, which is not available online, also features video of curators explaining the treasures.
The prototype runs in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, Spanish and Portuguese. The goal is to create a "high-quality, fluent user experience, no matter what language you are using," Van Oudenaren said. "Too many sites are multilingual in a very superficial sense."
Representatives for Intel were on hand at UNESCO's Paris headquarters to show how the prototype worked on its child-focused Classmate PC, and Apple Inc. employees brought along mobile devices for demonstrations.
"We have provided (the project with) expertise about how to digitize documents, how to do it for less money, how to handle and sort digital content and make it accessible," said Herve Marchet, Apple's director of education markets in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
The project has sought help from the business world since its beginning. In 2005, soon after Billington proposed the project, Google Inc. announced that it would provide US$3 million (
The Associated Press
PARIS: Listen to a former American slave tell his story. Turn the pages of a book about ancient treasures from Egypt. Pore over old maps written in Latin.
Reporters in Paris got a peak Wednesday at a prototype for the World Digital Library, an online initiative by the U.S. Library of Congress, the U.N. cultural body UNESCO and international partner libraries. Officials are aiming for a 2008 launch of the online site.
Abdul Waheed Khan, UNESCO's assistant director-general for communication and information, and the U.S. Librarian of Congress James H. Billington signed an agreement to forge ahead on the project Wednesday. The concept is modeled on the Library of Congress' American Memory project, which debuted in the 1990s and now has 11 million history-related items online.
The international digital library will be free and multilingual, with contributions from around the world, including rare books, films, prints, sound recordings and musical scores.
John Van Oudenaren, senior adviser for the initiative, gave a guided tour of the prototype, showing off documents such as New World maps, historic photographs from Brazil and a 1949 audio file of a former American slave. The prototype, which is not available online, also features video of curators explaining the treasures.
The prototype runs in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, Spanish and Portuguese. The goal is to create a "high-quality, fluent user experience, no matter what language you are using," Van Oudenaren said. "Too many sites are multilingual in a very superficial sense."
Representatives for Intel were on hand at UNESCO's Paris headquarters to show how the prototype worked on its child-focused Classmate PC, and Apple Inc. employees brought along mobile devices for demonstrations.
"We have provided (the project with) expertise about how to digitize documents, how to do it for less money, how to handle and sort digital content and make it accessible," said Herve Marchet, Apple's director of education markets in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
The project has sought help from the business world since its beginning. In 2005, soon after Billington proposed the project, Google Inc. announced that it would provide US$3 million (