UNESCO Committed to Expand World Digital Library

“Libraries, especially digital libraries, are truly at the heart of knowledge societies; they enable people to access, share and apply knowledge. UNESCO is committed to further expand universal participation in the World Digital Library (WDL) which reflects the values and priorities of our Organization” said UNESCO’s Assistant Director-General of UNESCO for Communication and Information at the opening of the first official meeting of the WDL partners held in Washington, DC on June 22-23.

The meeting elected a 7-member Executive Council, including UNESCO and the Library of Congress in their capacity as ex-officio members. In connection with this meeting the Carnegie Corporation of New York supported a conference of directors and technical staff from libraries, archives, and museums in 11 countries – Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan – to identify important documents and collections from these countries that should be added to the WDL.

“Capacity-building is a crucial element of the WDL, which is more than just a very high-tech website. In order to ensure participation by all countries that wish to share their cultural heritage with the world via the WDL, we need to assist them with training, equipment, and software” said Librarian of Congress James H. Billington.

The World Digital Library has now 85 partners from some 55 countries. More than 10 million users worldwide have visited the WDL since its official launch in April 2009.

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Fonte: Resource Shelf