San Francisco, Nov. 22 (Reuters): The US Library of Congress has kicked off a campaign today to work with other nation’s libraries to build a World Digital Library, starting with a $3 million donation from Google Inc.

Librarian of Congress James Billington said he is looking to attract further private funding to develop bilingual projects, featuring millions of unique objects, with libraries in China, India, the Muslim world and other nations.

This builds on major existing digital documentary projects by the Library of Congress ? one preserving an online record of Americana and another documenting ties between the US and Brazil, France, the Netherlands, Russia and Spain.

“The World Digital Library is an attempt to go beyond Europe and the Americas... into cultures where the majority of the world is,” Billington said.

As an example, Billington said the Library of Congress is in discussions with the national library of Egypt to include a collection of great Islamic scientific works from the 10th through the 16th century in the World Digital Library.

“We are trying to do a documentary record of other great cultures of the world. How much we will be able to do will depend on how many additional partners we attract.”

Over the past decade, the American Memory Project of the Library of Congress has digitised more than 10 million items to create a documentary record of Americana.

These include manuscripts, maps, audiovisual recordings, cartoons, caricatures, posters, documentary photographs, music, and, to a lesser extent, historic books. The digital library would have a similar variety of multimedia objects.

A second project, called the Global Gateway and introduced in 2000, involves collaborations with five national libraries in Europe and Brazil that focus on documenting ties between each of those countries and US culture.

By contrast, the digital library will focus on creating records of global cultures. The Library of Congress will contribute its own body of works to a blended collection with other countries. More than half of the printed volumes in the library are in languages other than English.

“It will deal with the culture of those people rather than with our contacts as Americans with those cultures,” Billington said.