www.wdl.org

World Digital Library Partner Meeting

Washington, DCDecember 5, 2012

Content Selection:

Where We’ve Been, Where We Are, and Where We Are

Going

John Van OudenarenDirector, WDL

• Content Selection Guidelines and Other Factors Influencing Selection

• Results to Date• Future Directions

Agenda

Working Group Committee MeetingsParis, October 2007Cairo, January 2009

Participants from:EgyptRussiaChinaKenyaMexicoQatarSerbiaUNESCO

United States

Content Selection Guidelines

Content Selection Guidelines, January 2009

Advisory Committee on Arabic and Islamic Scientific Manuscripts (KAUST)

London, June 2008London, October 2008

Chinese-Language Content Working Group Washington, December 2009

Mesoamerican CodicesMexico City, May 2010

Regional and Functional Subcommittees/Working Groups

Regional and Functional Subcommittees/Working Groups

Arab Peninsula Regional Group (Qatar Foundation/Qatar National Library)

Doha, December 2010Doha, February 2012

Conference of Partners and Prospective Partners from the Former Soviet Union (Carnegie Corporation of New York)

Washington, June 2010

Mesoamerican Codices Comprehensive (all significant pre- and post-Columbian

documents extant in Mexico, Europe, the United States and Canada)

Arabic and Islamic Scientific Manuscripts- Astronomy and especially the works of al-Sūfī, ‘Abd al-

Rahmān ibn ‘Umar (d. 986), Suwār al-kawākib (Book of the constellations of the fixed stars)

- Mechanical devices- Illustrated geographies with maps

Examples of Recommendations

Examples of Recommendations

Chinese-Language- Archival materials and architectural design on Yuan Ming

Yuan, the Garden of Perfect Brightness destroyed in 1860 and in 1900 during the Boxer uprising

- Taiping printed books (Books printed during the Taiping Kingdom, 1851-1864)

- Astronomy and divination- Pre-1900 Chinese maps- Rare books from the Song Dynasty, 960-1279 AD- Jesuit publications (Western works translated into

Chinese) from the 16th and 17th Centuries- Ming Dynasty block-printed works with illustrations, 1368-1644 AD

Other Factors Influencing Selection• Some content about every country in the world• Content from as many participating partner

institutions as possible• Priority for collections and items on the UNESCO Memory of the World register• Responses to user feedback• Institutional and curatorial discretion• Areas of concentration

Designated in 2011 Business PlanArabic scientific manuscriptsMesoamerican codicesChinese rare books, maps, and manuscriptsTreasures from Medieval and Renaissance Europe

Bibles and Qur’ans (other sacred texts)Early photographic surveys of empires

Areas of Concentration

89 institutions in 46 countries have content on the WDL 10-12 institutions to be added in the next few months

6,588 items comprising 319,296 images on www.wdl.org

Some content about all UN member countries:Highest: Russian Federation (1799)Lowest: Andorra, Chad, Comoros, Cyprus, Fiji, Maldives,

Monaco, San Marino, Swaziland, Tonga, Vanuatu (1)

Content in 91 languages

Results to Date

Results to DateTop languages by number of items:

• Spanish (1137)• English (549)• Arabic (395)• German (328)• Russian (297)• French (267)• Chinese (219)• Latin (194)• Japanese (162)• Portuguese (104)

Results to Date

Endangered and lesser-known languagesrepresented

NyoroLadinoDazagaSionaChibchaAchagua

Results to Date

Areas of concentration: Mesoamerican CodicesJohn Carter Brown Library, U.S.Medicea Laurenziana Library, Italy Library of Congress, U.S.Center for the Study of the History of Mexico, MexicoNational Institute of Anthropology and History INAH, Mexico University of Texas Libraries, U.S. National Library of Spain General Archive of the Nation, Mexico Uppsala University Library, Sweden

Results to Date

Areas of concentration: Arabic Scientific Manuscripts

Library of Congress National Library and Archives of Egypt Bibliotheca Alexandrina Qatar National Library Mamma Haidara Commemorative Library University Library in Bratislava Yale University Library National Library of Spain

Results to Date

Significant amounts of original bibliographic and scholarly research– European medieval and Renaissance treasures– Chinese rare books– Early photographic surveys of empires– Arabic scientific manuscripts

• Should we revise/update the content selection guidelines?

• What is missing?• What do users want?• What are the gaps and imbalances?• What role for committees and subcommittees?• How can we better exploit the intellectual added

value (selection, metadata, description, translation)• Other ideas and suggestions

Future Directions

www.wdl.org