The Library of Congress and UNESCO recently announced their agreement to move forward with the creation of a World Digital Library.
The World Digital Library, modeled after the Library of Congress’s American Memory project, “will make available on the Internet, free of charge and in multilingual format, significant primary materials from cultures around the world, including manuscripts, maps, rare books, musical scores, recordings, films, prints, photographs, architectural drawings, and other significant cultural materials. The objectives of the World Digital Library are to promote international and inter-cultural understanding and awareness, provide resources to educators, expand non-English and non-Western content on the Internet, and to contribute to scholarly research.” See the LOC press release for more information. See the New York Times (registration required) for recent news coverage.