www.wdl.org

World Digital Library Partner Meeting

Washington, DCDecember 5, 2012

Project Update

John Van OudenarenDirector, WDL

Progress in key areas in the past year

Agenda

• Content• Partner Recruitment• Capacity Building• Usage and User Engagement• Technical Development

Longer-Term Priorities Sustainability and resource issues Discussion and questions

• Stage one Business Plan targets met• Quality has been maintained • Progress in high-priority areas

• But:–The time may be right for a thorough review of

2009 Content Selection Guidelines

Content

Current status: 165 partners in 77 countries89 institutions in 46 countries have content on www.wdl.org10-12 institutions to be added in the next few months

Some success in building or recruiting national networksNational Library of UgandaMinistry for Cultural Heritage and Activities, ItalyCONACULTA, Mexico

Partner Recruitment

Partner Recruitment

Gaps• Some major countries are still totally unrepresented in terms

of institutional participation (e.g., Indonesia, Turkey, Poland, Hungary, Ireland)

• Content from some countries is good but not fully representative of the country (India; Syria and Lebanon)

• Many countries lack capacity to contribute in a meaningful way or do not know about the project

WDL-funded digitization centers at:National Library of UgandaIraqi National Library and ArchivesNational Library and Archives of Egypt

Training workshops with the Qatar National Library

Documentation and best practices (WDL, IFLA)

But:Need clearly vastly outstrips supply

Capacity Building

Capacity Building

2011 Business Plan proposal: • “Develop a comprehensive needs assessment and long-

term strategy for capacity building. This should be done in cooperation with other partners and with organizations such as IFLA and UNESCO. What is needed is a comprehensive ‘white paper’ that deals with needs, different capacity building models, potential sources of funding, and related issues such as physical and digital preservation.”

Longer-Term Priorities• Scaling up the addition of content Broad coverage of countries, cultures, topics, time periods, formats

100,000 item target

• Toward universal participationAt least one content-contributing partner in every country

• Adding interface languages Hindi, German, Japanese Other

• Developing mobile applicationsTablets, mobiles

Longer-Term Priorities

• New web site featuresFTSBetter highlighting of partnersAdaptation of search results page; improved use of facets

• Developing areas of thematic focus with interpretive content

Arabic science and technologyChinese rare books and mapsMesoamerican codicesOther

Library of Congress Project Management Team

Generous in-kind contributions from partners

Little room under current budgetary realities to - Launch ambitious capacity building initiatives- Tackle some of the longer-term priorities in a

serious way

Resources

Medicea Laurenziana Library

•The Florentine Codex, 1577

Content

Bavarian State Library

• Qur’an of Père Lachaise, 14th century

Content

Library of Congress

• Turkestan Album

• Prokudin-Gorskii Collection

Content

National Library of Spain

• General Atlas of All the Islands in the World, ca. 1539

Content

www.wdl.org