Digital Libraries abroad: Mexico joins the World Digital Library project

On November 24 2010 was unveiled the Mexican Digital Library, (BDMx) which is to join the international project of the World Digital Library (WDL). Promoted by the National Council for Culture and Arts, the National Institute of Anthropology and History, the National General Archives and the Centro de Estudios de Historia de Mexico nearly 20 historical documents safeguarded by these institutions, dated from 500 to 1949 have been made available on the website of the library www.bdmx.mx .

The purpose of the Mexican Digital Library is digitization and preservation of documents, which represent historical value, and creation of a database that will reunite the Mexican documentary richness, to be consulted from any part of the world. The library, launched by president of the state-run National Culture and Arts Council Consuelo Saizar, will make historic texts available in eight languages to participants worldwide under the World Digital Library project, which is being promoted by the U.S. Library of Congress. Mexico’s contribution to this program includes key codices, published in the pictorial script used in the nation before Spanish colonists arrived in the 16th Century: the Colombian Codice, Testeriano Catechism, the Marquesado del Valle Codice and the Totomixtlahuac Codice.