World Digital Library Partner Meeting Washington, DC December 5, 2012 Content Selection: Where Weve Been, Where We Are, and Where We Are Going John Van Oudenaren Director, WDL

Content Selection Guidelines and Other Factors Influencing Selection Results to Date Future Directions Agenda

Working Group Committee Meetings Paris, October 2007 Cairo, January 2009 Participants from: Egypt Russia China Kenya Mexico Qatar Serbia UNESCO United States Content Selection Guidelines Content Selection Guidelines, January 2009

Advisory Committee on Arabic and Islamic Scientific Manuscripts (KAUST) London, June 2008 London, October 2008 Chinese-Language Content Working Group Washington, December 2009 Mesoamerican Codices Mexico 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 2010 Doha, 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-Sū fī, Abd al- Rah mān ibn Umar (d. 986), S uwār al-kawākib (Book of the constellations of the fixed stars) - Mechanical devices - Illustrated geographies with maps 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, ) - Astronomy and divination - Pre-1900 Chinese maps - Rare books from the Song Dynasty, AD - Jesuit publications (Western works translated into Chinese) from the 16th and 17th Centuries -Ming Dynasty block-printed works with illustrations, 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 Plan Arabic scientific manuscripts Mesoamerican codices Chinese rare books, maps, and manuscripts Treasures from Medieval and Renaissance Europe Bibles and Qurans (other sacred texts) Early photographic surveys of empires Areas of Concentration

89 institutions in 46 countries have content on the WDL institutions to be added in the next few months 6,588 items comprising 319,296 images on 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

Top 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 languages represented Nyoro Ladino Dazaga Siona Chibcha Achagua

Results to Date Areas of concentration: Mesoamerican Codices John Carter Brown Library, U.S. Medicea Laurenziana Library, Italy Library of Congress, U.S. Center for the Study of the History of Mexico, Mexico National 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