The 2nd International Conference
on Universal Digital Library
(ICUDL 2006)
Alexandria, Egypt, 17-19 November 2006
Background
The 1st International Conference on Universal Digital Library (ICUDL2005), was held in Hangzhou, China from October 31 to November 2, 2005 (http://www.zju.edu.cn/english/news/2005(7-12)/news051103.htm). The 2nd ICUDL2006 is to be held in the Bibliotheca Alexandrina (BA), Alexandria, Egypt from 17 to 19 November 2006, and organized by the International School of Information Science (ISIS), BA affiliated research center. The site was chosen to revive the nations’ memory of the significant role of libraries and research centers in paving the way for mankind welfare through science and knowledge exchange.
The theme of ICUDL2005 was "Universal Digital Library: Universal Access to Information". Linking to ICUDL 2006, the organizing committee has scoped the following theme: “Towards building the globally owned Universal Digital Library where human knowledge is equally preserved and accessed”. The goal of both conferences is to provide a platform for the collaboration between all digital libraries and research centers professionals. Moreover, promoting for the Million Book Project (MPB) as the core for the content of the Universal Digital Library, and globally inviting all digital initiatives to share with their digital input to enrich this great resource.
The Million Book Project was initiated by Carnegie Mellon University in USA. The primary long-term objective is to transfer all books into digital format, in partnerships with other scanning centers internationally, in order to create a Universal Digital Library. It is a collaborative scheme between more than twenty international universities and information and development institutions from the USA, China, India and Egypt. The multinational stakeholders have been working to demonstrate the project’s feasibility by digitizing one million books within three years and publishing them as a searchable collection on the Internet.
History has proved that today’s dreams are tomorrow’s reality. Enlivening their ancestors' great work when they built the glorious Ancient Library of Alexandria, today, all stakeholder digital libraries and institutes have decided to hold this annual conference with an anticipation of continuous expansion to lay the foundation of the UDL. All participants will be gathering in the BA to accomplish the nations’ ultimate goal of rising to the challenge of the digital age as the only path to bridge the digital and economical divide between the have and have not.
