Robert Darnton, the director of the Harvard University Library, is making a pitch for the U.S. to create a National Digital Library, “that is, a comprehensive library of digitized books that will be easily accessible to the general public.”
“All sorts of initiatives that could be useful and instructive in the creation of a National Digital Library,” Darnton says. “Think of HathiTrust, the Internet Archive, the [Canadian] Knowledge Commons Initiative, the California Digital Library, the Digital Library Federation, the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program, and other nonprofit enterprises.”
But Darnton also said this:
”Virtually every developed country has launched some kind of national digital library, and many developing countries are doing the same.”
Really?
Would love to know what they are. What, for instance, is Canada's national digital library? Many might point to Collections Canada, the site maintained by Library And Archives Canada, the federal government institution. And there's the Bilbiothèque et Archives Nationales du Québec. But neither is really, as Darnton defines it in his essay, “a comprehensive library of digitized books that will be easily accessible to the general public.”
My Twitter friend Alison Loat helpful points out that there is an initiative underway in Ontario to get an Ontario Digital Library a la Darnton up and running.
Anyhow: I've asked my Facebook friends and my Twitter tweeps if they have some examples of national digital libraries. I'll post links here if I can find 'em.