World Digital Library grows to 10,000 items

WASHINGTON: The World Digital Library lead by the Library of Congress in Washington reached a landmark, surpassing 10,000 items with the addition of prehistoric manuscripts from the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore.

Officials said the digital library's collection has grown to include 10,037 digitized manuscripts, maps, books, prints, photographs, films, sound recordings and other cultural items. The constant effort is a collaborative project that includes contributions from 102 institutions in 46 different countries.

The content can be accessed online in seven languages: Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish.

The most recent contributions include an early 16th-century Gospel manuscript from Ethiopia and a manuscript containing an Ottonian Gospel book fragment believed to have been made in a German monastery in the 10th century. There is also a church calendar in Greek that was created in Byzantium around 1025 to 1041.

The Walters Art Museum has been using a grant from the National Endowment of the Humanities to digitize its manuscript collection.
Librarian of Congress James Billington said the digital library is making important and beautiful content available to a global audience.

"This project is of enormous benefit to students, teachers, scholars and lifelong learners, and I am gratified to see that it continues to grow," he said.

The World Digital Library began to take shape in 2005 with a $3 million gift from Google. It was formally launched in 2009 at UNESCO's headquarters in Paris with content from national libraries around the world.

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Seed libraries’ try to save the world’s plants

AAbasic principle of any library is that you return what you take out. By that standard, the new scheme at Hampshire College’s library is a roll of the dice. Since last November, librarians have been lending out packets of seeds, allowing people to plant them, and checking them back in if—and only if—the borrower manages to grow thriving plants in the meantime.

The Hampshire College project is part of a small but growing group of “seed libraries” across the country, local centers that aim to promote heirloom gardening and revive a more grass-roots approach to seed breeding.

The circulating-library model might seem like a strange fit with gardening. When you check out books and DVDs, you’re supposed to bring them back so others can use them, but with seeds, there’s a strong chance nothing will come back at all. And, in a world where fruit and vegetable seeds are available for just a few dollars a packet, free seeds aren’t a pressing need most places.

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How building a library of brains could save lives

A library is being assembled in San Diego with the help of some 300 brain donors; people from all walks of life, some of whom are healthy and some of whom have life-threatening brain disorders.

The patients undertake a series of tests during the course of their lives – and then donate their brains when they die. Slices of their brain are scanned and the images are digitally preserved, allowing doctors to search for clues to both neurological diseases and the secrets behind human longevity.

The Brain Observatory’s founder, Dr Jacopo Annese, says the library’s wealth of information could also help doctors discover the telltale signs of serious brain illnesses long before they actually appear.

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