UNESCO’s World Digital Library launches today. It’s a site where you can view artifacts from every UNESCO member country, or, in the words of the WDL, it “makes available on the Internet, free of charge and in multilingual format, significant primary materials from countries and cultures around the world.”
Right now, there’s a bit of a mismatch between the lofty mission statement and the actual site — there are only 1,170 artifacts as of now. But it’s growing, so it will be interesting to watch the site develop.
The layout is cool. It’s actually a pretty simple idea to lay artifacts out on a map of the globe, but it changes my experience of the artifacts. It makes me think about the objects each country chooses as repositories of its history, and about what values and expectations went into making these decisions. Plus, it’s so easy to use that everyone from elementary school students to grownups could benefit from it.