When we left off, Jean-Noël Jeanneney, former French secretary of state for communications and the current President of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France (BNF), had criticized the Google library project for Anglo-American bias and called on France to launch a comparable program. His words are having an effect. Reuters reports that French President Jacques Chirac has asked the BNF to draw up plans for a similar digitization program. Quoting Reuters: 'Chirac asked Jeanneney and France's culture minister to look at ways "in which the collections of the great libraries in France and Europe could be made more widely and more quickly accessible by Internet," Chirac's office said in a statement. Chirac would seek support among other European countries in the coming weeks for a bigger, coordinated push to get Europe's literary works online....Culture Minister Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres said the French move was not a direct challenge to Google's project. "It is simply the wish for a diversity of influence," he said.' The BBC is reporting the same news. Quoting the BBC: '[Chirac] held a meeting in Paris with Culture Minister Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres and Mr Jeanneney on Wednesday to discuss the project...."Because of France and Europe's exceptional cultural heritage, they must play a key role" in the development of the internet, Mr Chirac said.' More coverage.
(PS: Google's library project was already admirable. If it starts a new code war, sending files across the globe and developing digital arsenals ready for launch at a moment's notice, then it will be even more admirable. France is right to fight bits with bits, to recognize a digitization gap, and to escalate its cultural scan. Who's next?)
Posted by
Peter Suber at 3/18/2005 11:19:00 AM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
