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International Children's Digital Library caters to young around the globe

Monday, July 07, 2003

By Karen MacPherson, Post-Gazette National Bureau

WASHINGTON -- At the International Children's Digital Library, young readers are invited to choose books by their color. Or by their shape. Or whether the books will make them feel happy or scared.

Such playfulness is an integral part of the ICDL, a $4.4 million project being conducted by the University of Maryland and the Internet Archive. Funded by the National Science Foundation and the Institute for Museum and Library Services, the ICDL is designed to offer the world of books in a new way to children around the globe.

	Fast facts Here are some facts about the International Children's Digital Library: Web address: www.icdlbooks.org Major funders: National Science Foundation and Institute for Museum and Library Services Key research bases: the University of Maryland's Human-Computer Interaction Lab and College of Information Studies, and the San Francisco-based Internet Archive Number of "unique" users since the ICDL's launch in November: 180,000 from more than 70 countries. Top three countries are the United States, Canada and Taiwan. Most popular book: "Axle the Freeway Cat" by Thacher Hurd

Over the next five years, the ICDL will grow to encompass 10,000 "virtual" volumes in 100 languages for children ages 3 to 13. Currently, the ICDL collection, presented on a colorful Web site, includes 300 books in 15 languages, including Arabic, Khmer, German, Finnish, Croatian and English.

The ICDL's "shelves" include picture books, chapter books, and series books, and a mixture of fiction and non-fiction. To go to the ICDL, young readers can log onto www.icdlbooks.org

Although some adult skeptics complain that it's impossible to curl up with a good book on a computer, children who use the ICDL seem to love the idea of combining reading and technology, researchers say. Parents and teachers also have written to ICDL researchers to rave about how the cyber-library has added a positive new dimension to children's reading experiences.

"The response has been better than we could ever have hoped for," said Allison Druin, who leads the team of University of Maryland researchers on the project. "We've had almost 180,000 unique users come to the Web site since we launched it in November. It's incredible -- we've had users from 70-plus countries."

In addition to introducing children to literature from other cultures, Druin and others working on the ICDL see the project as a way to bring books to kids who wouldn't ordinarily have access to them.

ICDL researchers, in fact, view their work as an extension of Andrew Carnegie's effort to create libraries, based on his belief that literacy was the key to citizenship.

ICDL researchers say their goal is to "revisit his vision, using technological advancements to strengthen the dream by providing all children with direct access to the resources that are essential to enlightened citizenship: literature, knowledge, and information."

"This is really fulfilling on the digital promise," ICDL Director E. Jane White added. "There are places in outer Mongolia where you will see a computer connected to the Internet faster than you will ever see a great library or a great bookstore."

Books aren't the only focus of the ICDL, which also is being viewed by librarians and computer scientists as a living laboratory to determine how children can use computers to select books.

"The results of this research could have a significant impact on the way librarians develop children's collections and programs, and on how children learn," said Robert Martin, director of the Institute for Museum and Library Services.

Druin's team at Maryland includes several children, ages 7-11, who are partners with the adult librarians and computer scientists working on the ICDL. In the next couple of years, the team of children will be expanded to include kids in four other countries and in inner city Chicago, Druin said.

It was the children on the Maryland team who came up with the idea of sorting books by how they make you feel, Druin said. Children also suggested some of the other 12 categories by which readers can choose books. The categories include "true vs. make believe," "shape," and "length," as well as the more traditional "subject" and "setting."

Overall, the design of the ICDL was created to put children in control, Druin said. The ICDL site uses only a small amount of text and instead emphasizes visual cues, giving easy access even to children who don't read yet or who can't type well.

The project was formally launched in November at the Library of Congress, and researchers continue to develop the collection. Some of the current books in the ICDL are familiar to American children, including such classics as "Alice In Wonderland." Others, however, are less well-known, either because they come from other countries or because they are out of print.

ICDL researchers plan to use the collection process to better understand the concept of "fair use" in the digital age, said Ann Carlson Weeks, a Maryland library science professor who is part of the ICDL research team.

About half of the current collection consists of copyrighted books, while the other half consists of books "in the public domain," meaning their copyright has expired.

Publishers generally have been wary of allowing their books to be used online, fearing that will cut into the sales of physical volumes. But some U.S. publishers now are allowing some of their books to be used by the ICDL, Weeks said.

"Of the nine children's book publishers we contacted, five said they were interested," she added. "Some of them put conditions on how the books were to be used, but they are willing to work with us."

Karen MacPherson can be reached at kmacpherson@nationalpress.com or 1-202-662-7075.