[Open Access News] More on French digitization plans
Gavin Baker
The report is available here (in French).As France drags its cultural past and present into the digital future, it is coming around to the idea that the job will require support from a company often viewed with deep suspicion here: Google. ...
Last year, unconfirmed reports that the National Library of France was considering working with Google on scanning millions of books caused an outcry. In response, President Nicolas Sarkozy pledged €750 million, or $1.1 billion, to bolster France’s own efforts to digitize libraries and cultural archives.
As an expert panel published its recommendations on how to go about that, the culture minister, Frédéric Mitterrand, said this week that he hoped to move beyond the “passionate reflexes” that have sometimes inflamed French attitudes toward Google and other U.S. Internet companies. ...
The panel proposed a partnership in which taxpayer money would be used to scan books from the national library and other public institutions; those would form the backbone of an upgraded version of the government’s existing digital book project, called Gallica. To add other works, the report recommended working with private companies like Google, whose digital book archive is by far the most comprehensive. Works could then be made available on both sites.
Mr. Mitterrand said he planned to visit Google headquarters in California to negotiate on several sticking points. To participate, Mr. Mitterrand said, Google would have to depart from its practice of striking exclusive arrangements with institutions that participate in its book program, which include a municipal library in Lyon. He also insisted on greater respect for French copyright traditions, which can sometimes be more restrictive than American practices. ...
The government report lamented the shortcomings of Gallica, which has been archiving works that are no longer under copyright. While Google has scanned more than 10 million books, the study says, Gallica has only 145,000 in its database. Even some French classics are apparently unavailable on Gallica ...
Google welcomed the proposal for a partnership, saying it was “in line with the spirit of cooperation we’ve always tried to promote.” ...
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Posted By Gavin Baker to Open Access News at 1/14/2010 06:46:00 PM