With thousands of artifacts in its collection and some dating as far back as 8,000 B.C., the World Digital Library is like a time capsule at your fingertips. Compiled by libraries around the world and the United Nations education agency, the project has digitized some of humanity's earliest written works, from ancient Chinese oracle bones to the first European map of the New World to the only known copy of the first book published in the Philippines.
The Web site can be navigated in seven different languages - English, Arabic, Chinese, French, Spanish, Portuguese and Russian - and contains treasures such as rock paintings,
early photographs, films and audio tracks from 19 countries. Users can enter a specific search term or browse the catalog by place, time, topic, type of item or institution. The easy-to-use site offers page-by-page viewing of the original works, often with multilingual narration by curators.