Library
Texts that shaped how the world communicates, from 1945 to today. Each entry links to the original or to an authoritative copy.
- 1945As We May Think
Vannevar Bush · The Atlantic
An essay on how the record of human knowledge might be stored, connected and found again.
- 1945First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC
John von Neumann · University of Pennsylvania
The first description of a computer that keeps its programme in memory. Copy held by the Smithsonian Libraries.
- 1948A Mathematical Theory of Communication
Claude E. Shannon · Bell System Technical Journal
How a message can be measured, encoded and sent.
- 1948Universal Declaration of Human Rights
United Nations General Assembly · United Nations
Thirty articles, adopted in Paris on 10 December 1948.
- 1950Computing Machinery and Intelligence
A. M. Turing · Mind
The paper that asks whether machines can think, and proposes a way to find out.
- 1989Information Management: A Proposal
Tim Berners-Lee · CERN
The proposal that led to the World Wide Web.
- 2015Transforming our World: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development
United Nations General Assembly · United Nations
The plan adopted by all UN Member States in 2015, with seventeen Sustainable Development Goals.
- 2021Recommendation on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence
UNESCO · UNESCO
The first global standard on the ethics of AI, adopted by UNESCO’s 193 Member States.
- 2023Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.2
W3C · World Wide Web Consortium
How to make web content usable by people with disabilities.
- 2024Artificial Intelligence Act
European Parliament and Council · Regulation (EU) 2024/1689
The European Union’s rules for artificial intelligence.
- 2026The Unicode Standard, Version 18.0
Unicode Consortium · Unicode Consortium
One code for the characters of the world’s writing systems.