International Children’s Digital Library (ICDL) www.icdlbooks.org

What is the ICDL? The International Children’s Digital Library is a five-year research project of the University of Maryland and the Internet Archive, a project funded by the National Science Foundation, The Institute for Museum and Library Science, and the Kahle/Austin Foundation. It offers a new approach to providing an international collection of books in multiple languages to the world’s children. Building on the capability and promise of technology, the ICDL will be a collection of high quality children’s books from all over the world that are digitized in their entirety and made freely available over the Internet.

ICDL Goals Through collaborative research with children, librarians, teachers, computer scientists, authors, illustrators, and publishers from throughout the world, this project will result in: The creation of a digital library of at least 10,000 children’s books in at least 100 languages; The development of an icon-based interface that enables children to search, browse, read and share books in a digital format; An exploration of the relationship between access to digital resources and the use of physical books by children; A beginning attempt to determine what constitutes “fair use” to children’s books in a digital age; and An investigation of how access to this digital library can inform the creation of technology for children, improve library practices, and influence children’s attitudes toward books, reading, technology, libraries, and the world around them.

ICDL Today Current Collection ICDL Partners Over 260 books 25 languages 20 countries award winners, historical and contemporary ICDL Partners Libraries Organizations Individuals Publishers

Selection Process Important partners in our work ensure that the materials included in the initial collection are of the highest quality. The collection is being created with the guidance of the United States’ Library of Congress, the International Youth Library in Munich, international institutes of children’s literature and national libraries, as well as reading specialists and teachers from around the world.

ICDL BASIC HTML-based service Works on most computers with an internet connection Can read one page at a time or can select two-page view

ICDL Enhanced Java-based service Boolean search capability Multiple readers available

Research 180,000 unique users since our launch in Nov. 02. Over 1.3 million book pages have been accessed, over 200,000 books read. Users of the ICDL come from 21 countries with the United States, Canada, Taiwan, and Japan being the most frequent users. 60 percent of our users are females. Of the children who report using the site, approximately half of them come to the site with an adult and half work alone. The age range of the children that visit the site run from 3-18. The majority of adults who use the site report being teachers, followed by parents/caretakers, and then librarians.

ICDL and Partners We rely on partnerships to make our collection grow. The ICDL asks partners to help identify the appropriate organizations, institutions and individuals who can provide the best of your countries literature for children, both past and present. Once books are digitized, the images are made available to the contributor for their own use. The ICDL provides contributor information in the library software.

Digitization Process Digitization procedures are based on the Library of Congress standards. All books are scanned in color and in their entirety. The ICDL will subsidize scanning costs for books that require non-destructive, on-site scanning. Current books can be purchased by the ICDL and scanning will be outsourced to a scanning facility, the cost to be incurred by the ICDL. The ICDL can refer organizations to the best scanning technology and process available.

www.icdlbooks.org

Search for books by category or by geographical location.

TOP SEARCH CATEGORIES

SEARCH BY LANGUAGE

SEARCH RESULTS

BOOK PREVIEW

BOOK DISPLAYED IN FULL

STANDARD TWO-PAGE BOOK READER

…THANK YOU!