An ambitious new project intends to produce the largest digital library ever attempted and in seven languages: English, French, Spanish, Chinese, Russian, Arabic and Portuguese. The composite venture includes the participation of the U.S. Library of Congress, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), and six other libraries, including the national libraries of Egypt, Brazil and Russia.

The digital library Web site will provide searches by time, geographical location, topic and format, and the ability to narrow results by resources such as books, photographs, movies or recordings. The site will be ready for use by late 2008 or early 2009 at www.worlddigitallibrary.org (John Ward Anderson, "Checking Out Tomorrow's Library," The Washington Post, Oct. 17, 2007).