This paper describes the philosophy behind what represents one of the most ambitious projects of its kind ever to have been undertaken in the Spanish-speaking world: The Miguel Cervantes Digital Library (http://cervantesvirtual.com/). It explains the reasons behind its creation, the private-public sector alliance which has made it possible, and the new ground being explored by its creators in terms of innovative application of digital methods and of new services it offers to its audience world-wide. The Miguel Cervantes Digital Library is the result of a unique collaboration between Alicante University and Spain's biggest bank, the Banco Santander Central Hispano who have joined forces to create the world's biggest digital library containing Spanish-speaking works. It represents an example of successful partnership between university and business, with the Santandar Central Hispano Bank providing complete sponsorship for the full development of the project. The University, on the other hand, provides the academic expertise, technological know-how and qualified workforce necessary to fulfil objectives and ensures international use of the Library's resources by way of collaboration agreements with universities and institutions all over the world. The paper will address the issue of this partnering of academia and private enterprise as a case study of how two vastly different institutions have successfully worked together in the overall management and vision of a large, global project. The Miguel Cervantes Digital Library hopes to act as inspiration to other non-English speaking cultures to create their own novel digital tools which can be used by a multiracial and multilingual student and academic community of Internet users world-wide. Far from being a static collection of digitised books, the Library is envisaged as a vehicle for the Hispanic academy to promote their works, as a window to Hispanic literature and culture for scholars of Hispanic languages and cultures, and as a voice for the Hispanic university community world-wide. The actual content of the Library reflects this ambition as it includes sections such as:

• the digital publication of theses, which acts as a window to Hispanic research and a forum of academic debates
• a voice library with quality recordings of top Hispanic voices who have volunteered to recite one of the Library's most visited works. Well known Hispanic poets and authors also take part in this section, reciting parts of their own work
• a directory with over 3000 links to digital Hispanic resources and to outstanding digital collections, libraries and technology-related resources. All the links have a full explanation in Spanish for Hispanic users unfamiliar with the potential of the Web for study and research
• personalised pages on Hispanic authors, debate forums, its own electronic news bulletin, and a facility enabling readers, collectors and editors to interact and locate rare books
• initiatives aimed at bringing together "the Old" (printed material) and "the New" (electronically produced works). As well as a section called "Trueque" which brings together publishers, booksellers, collectors and readers in an attempt to locate rare and out-of-print editions, the project envisages traditional publication of text-books and critical studies accompanied by interactive electronic versions available in the Miguel Cervantes Digital Library "Research" section
• a section where the Library encourages and publishes in its pages the results of research projects and collaborations related to educational software development undertaken in or considered to be of interest to the Hispanic world. With the help of Latin-American governments and universities, we aim to equip villages, schools and communities with educational, literary and cultural material which, without modern technology, would be beyond their reach.

Another feature of this project is the use of technology to preserve and promote minority Hispanic languages, and to affirm different Hispanic cultures by way of specialised gateways and portals. The design of these sections does not only entail the use of new techniques, but also involves collaboration agreements whereby staff from the Miguel Cervantes Digital Library travel to other centres, universities and institutions all around different areas of Spain and Latin America in order to digitise "in situ" documents, objects and works of art. Existing language portals include Catalan, Basque and Galician, and gateways on Hispanic cultures are being developed on Cuba, Argentina and Mexico in collaboration with key institutions in these countries. Visits and contacts between academic institutions in these countries and the Library have illustrated the ground we need to make up in order to reach standards already achieved in other parts of the world as far as the use of digitised content for the study of the humanities is concerned. By opening up different channels of communication and collaboration within the different Hispanic communities (Spain, Latin America and the United States), we aim to provide academics all over the World, and especially in Spanish-speaking communities, with a major new research tool and to create a new concept of a digital library. During the past two years we have learned much from other worthy initiatives that are being undertaken in Spain, Latin America and further afield to digitise material reflecting Hispanic languages, literature and cultures. The author will provide a brief overview of the most notable projects in this area, and will offer a picture of the state of the art as to what techniques are being used to produce electronic resources in the Hispanic community at present and what the future holds. The final section of the paper will deal with the technical underpinnings of this project at present and in the future. Techniques used for digitisation of texts, manuscripts, images and voices will be discussed, and advances in this area made possible by certain strategic partnerships with universities, libraries and other institutions in Spain and abroad will be acknowledged.