Trey Brown
4/24/09
11:10
The UN's cultural agency is launching a website called The World Digital Library and its sole-purpose is the digitization and display of world treasures. The site will be host to manuscripts, maps, books, and films for the world population to view. UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) believes that this site will help to peak cultural curiosity around the world and promote understanding across cultures as a result. So far there are about 1,200 exhibits up and running on the site with a majority of them being items from Europe and other Western nations. Diversity is present though with about a tenth of the exhibits coming from Africa. The World Digital Library is still in its beginning stages and the number of exhibits and the number of cultures they are from is expected to quickly grow.
Utilizing tools to their full potential isn't always the easiest to do because of the myriad things that are possible with some. That is especially true when that tool is the internet. Cultural mixing has been happening since the internet’s creation but dedicating some of it to that purpose is genius. Having a specific place to visit and be able to learn about a people you may never see or that you just don't understand would be an invaluable experience. Also the digitization of culturally important artifacts and items means that once they are on the World Wide Web there will almost always be a copy of them somewhere. This means that even if the physical original is destroyed that digital copy will always exist for future generations to see and study for their own benefit. So in the end not only is UNESCO helping to promote cultural curiosity and understanding they are saving culturally important items almost indefinitely.
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