“The grant will help form a new nonprofit organization and create the technical platform to share digital content across the nation’s many public libraries and archives. Digitizing books and building a system for libraries to contribute will take years, though, and millions more dollars from private partners, said endowment chairman Jim Leach.
“The digital library effort is designed to be free for everyone. It could include partnerships with private groups, such as Google Books, to tap into content that’s already digitized. And it has the potential to enhance local libraries with more content beyond their physical walls, Leach added.
“’This is a great progression in how knowledge is developed, how it is maintained and spread,’ he said. ‘The digital world is probably the greatest democratization in the spread of learning that has ever occurred.’
“The library effort is meant to complement the World Digital Library project being led by the Library of Congress and international partners. It also will integrate with the European Union’s Europeana digital library collection.”
From Associated Press the Washington Post article, National Endowment for the Humanities gives $1M to create US digital library with Harvard