The U.S. Library of Congress (LOC) announced the World Digital Library (WDL) project this week, which is intended to bring online "rare and unique cultural materials held in U.S. and Western repositories with those of other great cultures such as those that lie beyond Europe and involve more than 1 billion people: Chinese East Asia, Indian South Asia and the worlds of Islam stretching from Indonesia through Central and West Asia to Africa," according to Librarian of Congress James H. Billington.

Google has agreed to donate $3 million to the effort, to be supported by funds from nonexclusive, public and private partnerships.

Google cofounder Sergey Brin said "Google supports the World Digital Library because we share a common mission of making the world's information universally accessible and useful."

The Library will begin developing a plan for identifying technology issues as well as the necessary resources for the digitization and organization of WDL collections.