hard deadlines

My Sumerian is not what it used to be, so forgive what is probably a shaky translation in the title, but the news that Google has partnered with the Iraq National Museum to digitize their entire collection is just fantastic news. You can read about it in the New York Times, which also contains a link to the prior work done by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (whose Virtual Museum of Iraq is an overwrought Flash nightmare with absolutely Gutian information architecture.)

It's a narrow, specialist fascination of mine, I know, but there are pieces in the collection that illuminate the origin of writing. I celebrate Google's vision and thank them on behalf of the generations of scholars and students who will now have access to these materials for the first time.

Hat tip to Saul Kaplan (@skap5, web) for spotting this.