A new project at William & Mary is the Virtual Library of Freedom, a group started by William & Mary alumna Hannah Thornton ’10.
Melissa Woods, a student at William & Mary, writes:
The Virtual Library of Freedom (VLF) is a student organization founded in 2010 that aims to promote cross-cultural discussion online between American and Middle Eastern students. The organization has built a web-site (www.vlfreedom.org) that features a database of documents, a student blog, and discussion forum, and is working on translating the entire site into Arabic, French, and Spanish. The documents included in the database discuss the topics of civil liberties, good governance, human rights, Islam and democracy, international relations, and non-violent protest. Blogs and discussions focus on current events, such as the death of Gaddafi in Libya. The web site is still an ongoing project, but each semester we are making more and more progress! VLF also seeks to promote discussion at William and Mary through on-campus events such as the “VLF Global Activism Week.” In the future, the organization hopes to partner with student organizations at Middle Eastern universities to foster dialogue and present more diverse opinions on the site.