Few people are less attuned to what will tickle the public's fancy than I am, so it's not surprising that Europeana - which I reviewed unenthusiastically here - turns out to be a big hit. Indeed, a victim of its own success according to The Digital Eccentric, and the stampeding masses tha ran its servers aground should serve as warning to the even more ambitious World Digital Library, set to launch in April 2009:
The World Digital Library will make available on the Internet, free of charge and in multilingual format, significant primary materials from cultures around the world, including manuscripts, maps, rare books, musical scores, recordings, films, prints, photographs, architectural drawings, and other significant cultural materials. The objectives of the World Digital Library are to promote international and inter-cultural understanding and awareness, provide resources to educators, expand non-English and non-Western content on the Internet, and to contribute to scholarly research.
The music on the intro video is good - much better than "These Boots are Made for Walking".
WDL is indeed ambitious in its eventual scope, but the project will launch with a much smaller collection. WDL may not attract the same level of interest upon launch, but the team followed the Europeana launch closely.
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