The Library of Congress is kicking off a campaign Tuesday to work with other nation's libraries to build a World Digital Library, starting with a $3 million donation from Google.
Librarian of Congress James Billington said he is looking to attract further private funding to develop bilingual projects, featuring millions of unique objects, with libraries in China, India, the Muslim world and other nations.
This builds on major existing digital documentary projects by the Library of Congress -- one preserving an online record of Americana and another documenting ties between the United States and Brazil, France, the Netherlands, Russia and Spain.
"The World Digital Library is an attempt to go beyond Europe and the Americas ... into cultures where the majority of the world is," Billington said.
As an example, Billington said the Library of Congress is in discussions with the national library of Egypt to include a collection of great Islamic scientific works from the 10th through the 16th century in the World Digital Library.
"We are trying to do a documentary record of other great cultures of the world. How much we will be able to do will depend on how many additional partners we attract," he said.
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Find your bliss: Joining the herd of websites jostling to cash in on the holiday shopping season, Google is adding a tool designed to make it easier for consumers to map out their local trips to the mall.
The feature, unveiled Tuesday at Google's Froogle shopping site, pinpoints the merchants selling a specific item within a designated ZIP code. Besides displaying a map showing all the local stores carrying the merchandise, Froogle also will list price differences.
The Mountain View, California company developed the free tool to help consumers avoid the frustration of traveling to a store that no longer has an item on their shopping lists, said Marissa Mayer, Google's director of consumer products.
Froogle, a comparison shopping site that Google launched three years ago, will continue to give visitors the option to buy the merchandise online. Google receives a commission for the online referrals.
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Is there ever enough TV?: Samsung Electronics and Sony will invest an additional 10 billion yen ($84 million) to boost production in a joint venture that makes display panels for televisions, both companies said Tuesday in a statement.
The joint venture, S-LCD in Tangjeong, South Korea, is producing 60,000 panels a month now, half for Sony and half for Samsung. But that will climb to 75,000 panels a month from July next year.
S-LCD is boosting production capacity to meet the surging demand for LCD TVs. Samsung, the world's biggest maker of memory chips, and Sony agreed in 2003 to set up the 50-50 joint venture with an initial investment of about $2 billion.
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AP and Reuters contributed to this report.
