UN to launch online digital library for the world

The United Nations' cultural body Unesco is to launch a World Digital Library later this month, a website that features unique contributions from archives around the globe.

• The site, which will be launched on April 21 at the body’s Paris headquarters, will include manuscripts, maps, rare books, films, sound recordings, prints and photographs.
• The public will be able to draw on all of the material featured free of charge.
• The new website, which has been hailed by some as an “intellectual cathedral”, has been produced by Unesco with funding from private companies and the assistance of 32 major cultural bodies from around the world. These include the Wellcome Collection in Britain; the Library of Congress in Washington; and the National Library and Archives of Iraq.
• The stunning contents of World Digital Library include relatively modern contributions such as the early films of France’s Lumiere brothers, stretching back to ancient texts and artworks.
• The trend of digitising art and cultural collections is growing across the world, making it more straightforward for the organisers of the new Unesco project to draw on material from collections in diverse parts of the globe.