One of UNESCO’s main-lines of action consists in promoting access to information in the public domain in order to exploit the rich collective public property. The new communication and information technologies allow global access to this information. Within the framework of this strategy, UNESCO is creating a virtual library of classic works of world literature. This flagship project, which consists in the establishment of the collection of digitized texts, will be made available on-line (on the Internet) and off-line (CD-ROMs). The access to both the on-line and the off-line products will be free-of-charge.        Virtual library of classic works of Arab literature        Virtual library of classic works of Lithuanian literature        Virtual library of classic works of Bulgarian literature    Virtual library of classic works of Arab literature Volume I of the collection will be an anthology of classic Arab literature accessible on CD-ROM and on the UNESCO website. This collection will consist of a selection of works of approximately 100 Arab-speaking authors. Electronic tools will allow for free text retrieval. The selection of the texts, the preparation of the bio-bibliographical note of each author included in the collection and the overall intellectual and philological control of the project will be ensured by the Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris. The Institut du Monde Arabe has established a first list of texts, free from copy-right, to be included in the project. The selection consists of key texts of Arab literature : poetry, narrative prose, rhythmic prose, classic anthologies, epistles and essays. The selection covers the pre-Islamic, classical and postclassical periods, until the beginning of the XIX century. The geographic areas covered are the Machrek, the Maghreb, Muslim Spain and Sicily and the Arabic Peninsula. The project will be later enriched by works of history, geography, theology, linguistics, mysticism and travel literature, and will also cover the Nahda and modern period. The CD-ROM will be disseminated free of charge by UNESCO and National Commissions for UNESCO in Arab countries. UNESCO will also host the website which will give free access to the totality of the digitized texts allowing for the steady enrichment of the anthology. The digitization of the texts (optical character recognition – OCR) is being carried out by experts in France. A co-operation agreement has been established between UNESCO and the Centre de recherche sur l'information scientifique et technique (CERIST) in Algiers for the preparation of additional text files to be included in the collection.   Egypt has made a generous contribution to the project which is at present mainly funded by UNESCO. Mauritania has designated the National Library of Mauritania as a partner institution in the project.   UNESCO seeks to establish additional partnerships with institutions in the private and public sectors, particularly in the Arab world, in order to enrich the collection and to ascertain funding of up-dates of the CD-ROM and the website.        Contact - Axel Plathe, UNESCO, Information and Informatics Division      Virtual library of classic works of Lithuanian literature UNESCO co-operates with the Institute of the Lithuanian Scientific Society in order to make key texts of classic Lithuanian literature available on the Internet and on off-line products (CD-ROM). The following project steps are planned : Establishment of a list of 100 key texts of classic Lithuanian literature; the texts selected shall be free from any copyright; Identification of websites with full versions of the selected texts ; Digitization e in optical character recognition mode (OCR) those selected texts which are not available in digital format; Formatting the digital texts in appropriate format for optimal translation into html; Creation of an interface (in Lithuanian and English) to make the digital texts accessible on a website and on a CD-ROM; the website and the CD-ROM will contain detailed bibliographic descriptions of the texts (in Lithuanian and English) and short biographical notes of their authors (in Lithuanian and English); Creation of a website and a CD-ROM integrating the interface and the digital texts Create CD-ROM based on the website content and interface; The project is expected to be terminated in summer 1999.        Contact - Axel Plathe, UNESCO, Information and Informatics Division    Contact -Juras Ulbikas, Institute of the Lithuanian Scientific Society      Virtual library of classic works of Bulgarian literature A similar project to make key texts of classic Bulgarian literature available on the Internet and on off-line products (CD-ROM) is presently being planned in Bulgaria.        Contact - Axel Plathe, UNESCO, Information and Informatics Division     cii.webmaster@unesco.org © Copyright 1998 - UNESCO