Building an “intellectual cathedral” for all mankind

As ideas go, they don’t come much bigger: Digitize the accumulated wisdom of humankind, catalog it, and offer it for free on the Internet in seven languages. The first phase of that simple yet ambitious dream is about a year away from being realized, according to a group of international librarians, computer technicians and United Nations officials who yesterday (October 17, 2007) unveiled a prototype for the project, called the World Digital Library, in Paris. “In essence, what they are doing is building an intellectual cathedral, and it may never get finished,” said Paul Saffo, a long-time Silicon Valley technology forecaster. “But this is a good effort even if it fails, because it is going to inspire a lot of other efforts, and if it succeeds it will be a wonderful resource.” Read about it in The Washington Post or visit www.worlddigitallibrary.org.