THE WORLD DIGITAL LIBRARY

This collection contains cultural heritage materials collected through the World Digital Library (WDL) project, including thousands of materials provided by partner organizations from around the world, as well as content from the collections of the Library of Congress. The original World Digital Library website (preserved in the Library of Congress web archive here) and all descriptive metadata have been translated from English and made available in six additional languages: Spanish, Portuguese, French, Arabic, Russian and Chinese. All material entries contain descriptions provided by partners and supplemented by WDL researchers to contextualize the material and its cultural and historical significance. Books, manuscripts, maps, and other primary sources in the WDL collection are presented in their original languages; over 100 languages are represented, including many lesser-known and endangered languages. In addition, all metadata from the Global Digital Library in each of the seven languages is available for download as a dataset.

The World Digital Library (WDL), launched in 2009, was a project of the Library of Congress of the United States with the support of UNESCO and the participation of libraries, archives, museums, educational institutions and international organizations around the world. The purpose of the WDL was to preserve and disseminate some of the world’s most important cultural sites, and to increase access to cultural treasures and significant historical documents to enable discovery, scientific research, and use.

Website: https://www.loc.gov/collections/world-digital-library/about-this-collection/